Multiplex development across the Fraser Valley

British Columbia's Bill 44, the Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing (SSMUH) legislation, required every municipality with a population over 5,000 to update its zoning by June 30, 2024. The rule is the same across the province: most single-family and duplex lots must now allow three units on lots up to 280 m², and four units on lots larger than that. Lots within about 400 metres of a frequent-transit stop, one with buses at least every 15 minutes on weekdays, can reach six units.

Every Fraser Valley municipality has adopted these rules, but each did so with its own local wrinkles. Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Mission sit in the Fraser Valley Regional District; Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, Langley, and Surrey are part of Metro Vancouver. All of them now permit multiplex housing on standard urban lots, and in every case the allowance only applies inside the municipality's urban containment or growth boundary, on lots served by municipal water and sewer.

Fraser Valley lots tend to be wider and deeper than lots in Vancouver, Burnaby, or New Westminster. That geometry suits a four-unit multiplex where each home gets its own entry, parking, and private outdoor space, rather than units squeezed onto a narrow city lot. Combined with lower land costs than the core of Metro Vancouver, the region can make the numbers on a multiplex work in a different way than an inner-city site.

A multiplex is still a real construction project, though. Feasibility, design to the local form-and-character rules, a development permit, a building permit, trades, and a construction timeline all have to be managed, and the local rules differ enough between cities that a plan built for one municipality will not simply transfer to the next. Our role is to carry that work and the construction risk through a clear, written GP/LP partnership. You contribute the land; Venture Pacific handles everything from the first feasibility review through to keys.

Abbotsford is the largest city in the region. It made its first Bill 44 changes with Bylaw 3560-2024 in June 2024, then adopted a comprehensive update on December 16, 2025 (Bylaws 3690, 3691, and 3692-2025) that applied SSMUH zoning to roughly 20,700 properties inside the Urban Development Boundary and allowed up to four units across nine residential zones. Abbotsford has one rule that stands apart from most of Metro Vancouver: a single owner must hold all the units on an SSMUH lot, and the homes cannot be stratified and sold separately. That changes how a project is structured, so it matters from the first feasibility conversation.

Chilliwack adopted its SSMUH amendments in 2024, allowing up to four units on single-detached or duplex lots larger than 280 m² inside its Urban Growth Boundary, and three on smaller lots. Chilliwack kept its existing requirement of two off-street parking spaces per unit, more than the province's suggested minimum, which affects how much of a lot the parking and driveways consume. Mission allows up to four units on most single-family lots inside its Urban Growth Boundary, and has a Transit Oriented Area around its West Coast Express station where density minimums apply and parking requirements drop.

Closer to the city, Maple Ridge adopted Bylaw 7998-2024 in June 2024 and took an unusual route, instead of new zones, it added an "Urban Infill Residential" use to existing residential zones, permitting three units on lots under 281 m², four units on larger lots up to about 4,050 m², and up to six within 400 metres of frequent transit. Pitt Meadows replaced its old R-1, R-2, and RD zones with new R-3, R-4, and R-6 zones in June 2024, scaling unit counts by lot size the same way. Langley Township and Surrey both have their own detailed pages, since each is a large market with its own rules worth covering on its own.

The Fraser Valley has more rural and agricultural land than the rest of Metro Vancouver, and that changes the first question on any lot. SSMUH only applies inside a municipality's urban containment or growth boundary, and only to lots connected to municipal sanitary sewer and municipal water. A lot on a septic field or a well, common on larger Fraser Valley properties, does not qualify, regardless of its size or zoning.

Land in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) is also outside the SSMUH rules and follows a separate framework entirely. Before any design work begins, confirming that a lot is inside the urban boundary, is fully serviced, and is not in the ALR is the threshold test, not a formality. We check all three at the feasibility stage, before any other work starts, so no one spends money designing a project the land cannot legally hold.