Multiplex development in New Westminster

New Westminster's Infill Housing Program is the City's response to the province's Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing (SSMUH) legislation under Bill 44. The program was formally adopted in June 2026, following a Public Hearing on May 25, 2026, where Council supported the bylaw amendments that created the new RGO, Residential Ground Oriented Infill Housing designation.

The City divided eligible land into two sub-zones. RGO-A covers approximately 1,900 properties and allows up to four units per lot. RGO-B covers roughly 1,100 properties and allows up to six units, these are generally lots that sit near frequent transit. Permitted housing forms include duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, multiplexes, secondary suites, laneway houses, carriage houses, and side-by-side townhouses of up to six units. Freehold (non-strata) tenure requires a separate rezoning, but strata, co-op, and rental tenures are all permitted within the RGO framework as-of-right.

The program also updated Development Permit Area guidelines (DPA 1.2) to focus on site design quality and greenhouse gas reduction, meaning projects still need a Development Permit in addition to a Building Permit, but they do not need an OCP amendment or rezoning if they meet the RGO standards. One infrastructure note worth flagging: projects developing more than three units may trigger servicing upgrades at developer cost, because existing water and sewer infrastructure was originally sized for the old single-family-plus-three-unit maximums.

If your lot sits in an RGO-A or RGO-B zone, its potential has changed. A single-family house that once defined the ceiling of what the land could do now sits below it. Whether you develop that potential or sell the lot outright is the real decision, and it is worth making with a clear picture of what the numbers look like first.

A multiplex is a real construction project. In New Westminster that means a Development Permit, a Building Permit, a Works and Services Agreement, potentially a utility servicing upgrade, and construction management across design, trades, and approvals. We carry that work and the construction risk through a transparent GP/LP partnership. You contribute the land; we run the project.

New Westminster is compact, about 15 square kilometres, and its three SkyTrain stations on the Expo Line anchor the densest redevelopment activity. The Columbia Station area and the blocks around New Westminster Station (Downtown/Uptown) are where the highest transit proximity bonus applies, supporting the six-unit RGO-B allowance on qualifying lots. The 22nd Street Station corridor in the city's western residential streets is seeing growing interest as infill opportunities become clearer.

Sapperton and Braid, on the city's northeast side, near the Expo Line's Sapperton Station, are established working neighbourhoods with a mix of standard lots and some larger parcels that can support side-by-side townhouse forms. The Connaught Heights and Queensborough areas are different stories: Queensborough is excluded from the Infill Housing Program until at least May 2029, pending infrastructure research on water and sewer capacity, so the standard RGO zoning does not apply there.

The Glenbrooke North and West End neighbourhoods, which sit between New Westminster and 22nd Street stations, tend to have the kind of straightforward rectangular lots that suit a four-unit RGO-A project, enough lot depth and width for a well-designed multiplex without needing the full six-unit configuration.

New Westminster has a larger stock of older character housing than most Metro Vancouver cities, and Queen's Park is the largest formal Heritage Conservation Area in British Columbia, more than 300 heritage-protected homes on tree-lined streets. The City's interim policy for Queen's Park restricts infill to cases where lot consolidation is not possible, and it holds that restriction in place until the City completes comprehensive heritage design guidance for the area.

That interim policy is not an outright ban on infill. Laneway houses, carriage houses, and garden suites have been permitted in Queen's Park and continue to be. But a full multiplex redevelopment in the conservation area requires additional review and carries more design constraints than a standard RGO lot elsewhere in the city. If your property sits in or near Queen's Park, we confirm the applicable rules during feasibility before recommending any path.

Outside the conservation area, heritage character does not automatically block redevelopment, but it can shape the design, particularly in older blocks where the City's DPA 1.2 guidelines place weight on neighbourhood fit and building scale.

New Westminster's DCC Bylaw came into effect on January 12, 2026, and it expanded the categories of infrastructure that DCCs can fund. Fire protection facilities and police facilities were added as eligible categories for the first time, joining the existing transportation, drainage, water, sanitary, and parkland charges. The 2025 interim DCC update had already included an inflationary increase.

In practical terms, a project permitted and started in 2026 faces a higher DCC load than the same project would have in 2025. That increase belongs in the feasibility model from the start, not as a late surprise during permit intake. We factor current DCC schedules into every pro forma we build for New Westminster.