How to find your lot's zone and read what it allows

Step one: find the zone name

Every city keeps a public map that shows the zone of each lot. Surrey's page points to COSMOS, its online mapping system. Coquitlam points to QtheMap. Richmond's bulletin points to the Richmond Interactive Map at maps.richmond.ca/rim, with a layer for lots within 400 metres of a qualifying bus stop. Delta points to DeltaMap, where a property's Info Report shows whether it sits in the six-unit area along Scott Road. Port Moody sends owners to the province's online housing map to see a lot's small-scale housing entitlement.

The map gives you a zone code, such as R3 in Surrey or RSM in Richmond. That code is the key to the bylaw. Write down the exact code, including any suffix, because R5 and R5-S in Surrey are separate zones with separate rules.

Two situations need extra care. A lot may sit in a Comprehensive Development zone, a zone written for one site with its own rules. Surrey alone has more than 4,600 CD-zoned lots based on single-family or duplex zones. A lot may also be split between two zones, which Burnaby dealt with in 2024 by rezoning the residential parts of split-zoned lots to its new R1 district. In either case, read the site-specific bylaw as well as the general zone.

Last, check the date. A zoning bylaw is amended many times a year. Surrey's consolidated bylaw lists every amending bylaw with its adoption date, and the copy read for this guide included one adopted on 21 September 2026. If the version you are reading is older than the latest amendment, ask the city for the current text.

Step two: permitted uses and the number of homes

The permitted uses section says what may be built and how many homes the lot may hold. In Surrey's R3 zone it is a table with five columns: lot size, lot location, maximum number of homes, principal uses and accessory uses. The table below copies the main rows for a lot under 4,050 square metres.

Read the footnotes under that table as carefully as the table. In R3, footnote 1 caps three kinds of land at 2 homes: land protected under the Heritage Conservation Act, land designated under a section 611 heritage bylaw as of 7 December 2023, and land with no community water or sewer. Footnote 3 allows a houseplex only on a corner lot, a through lot or a lot with lane access. Footnote 6 says a secondary suite is not permitted in a houseplex. Each of these changes what a specific lot can hold.

Next, look up every defined word. Zoning bylaws define their terms in a separate part. Surrey's Part 1 defines a houseplex as a building with at least 3 and no more than 4 principal homes that resembles a large house. A coach house, a garden suite and a secondary suite each have their own definition and their own size limits. A word that sounds ordinary may carry a narrow meaning in the bylaw.

Step three: floor area ratio, and what counts in it

Floor area ratio, which cities write as FAR or FSR (floor space ratio), is the total floor area a building may have divided by the area of the lot. The province's policy manual explains that it measures the sum of all usable floor area relative to the land, which is different from the building's footprint. A FAR of 1.0 on a 600 square metre lot allows 600 square metres of floor area, spread over as many storeys as the height rules permit.

Some zones change the ratio as the lot gets bigger. In Surrey's R3 zone, a houseplex gets 1.0 on the first 560 square metres of lot area and 0.60 on the rest. On a 600 square metre lot, that works out to 560 square metres plus 24 square metres (0.60 times 40), for 584 square metres in total. The zone also caps a houseplex at 600 square metres excluding basements, so on larger lots the cap decides the size before the ratio does.

What counts toward floor area is set zone by zone, and it matters as much as the ratio. In R3, basements count for a duplex and do not count for a houseplex. Covered parking counts. Any accessory building over 10 square metres counts. Floor area under a ceiling higher than 3.66 metres is counted twice, with some exclusions. Two buildings with the same ratio on paper can end up with different usable space because of these rules.

Some cities lean less on FAR. The province's policy manual says FAR is not necessary to control building size in small-scale housing zones when setbacks and height do the job, and it recommends that approach in its site standards. Burnaby's October 2025 amendments cut the achievable floor area of R1 projects by 33 to 60 percent depending on the housing type, unit count and lot size, which shows how much a city can change this number after adoption.

Step four: coverage, setbacks, height and parking

Lot coverage is the footprint of all buildings divided by the lot area, written as a percentage. The policy manual notes that some cities count all hard surfaces and others leave out ground-level paving, so read the definition. In Surrey's R3 zone, a houseplex may cover 60 percent of a lot up to 560 square metres. The limit then falls by 2 percent for each extra 93 square metres, down to 35 percent. A 653 square metre lot, which is 93 square metres over the threshold, gets 58 percent.

Setbacks are the minimum distances from each lot line to the building. Read four of them: front, rear, side and street side for a corner lot. Then read the reductions that follow the table. Surrey's R3 houseplex setbacks are 3.5 metres front, 7.5 metres rear and 1.2 metres side, and a covered porch may come to 2.0 metres from the front line. Coach houses and garden suites have their own setbacks and a required separation from the main building, 5.0 metres in R3.

Height is written in storeys, in metres, or both, and the way it is measured differs between cities. The policy manual says so directly, and notes that a building above three storeys usually needs a second exit under the BC Building Code. Surrey's R3 houseplex limit is 3 storeys including the basement, up to 9 metres with a sloped roof. The province recommends allowing 3 storeys and 11 metres.

Parking comes last because it can depend on location. Surrey requires 1 space per home for a duplex or houseplex, and none on eligible lots in a Frequent Bus Stop Area. Delta requires 1 space per home, with none for homes under 33 square metres or within 400 metres of frequent transit on Scott Road. Provincial law bars residential parking requirements on six-unit bus stop lots and in transit-oriented areas, except spaces for people with disabilities in those areas.

Step five: the title, where covenants live

Zoning is one layer of rules. The land title is another, and it can be stricter. Section 219 of the Land Title Act allows a covenant in favour of the Crown, a municipality, a regional district, the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority or certain other bodies to be registered on title. It can control how land or a building is used, say that land is to be built on only in a set way, or bar subdivision. It binds every later owner.

Building schemes are a second type of title restriction, registered under section 220 of the same Act by an original developer for a group of lots. Port Moody's page explains that these schemes often date from the 1950s or 1960s and can limit building size, style or the number of homes. It says the province acknowledged that a registered building scheme takes precedence over small-scale housing zoning, that the city is not a party to the scheme, and that the city cannot process small-scale housing applications on lots subject to one.

Pitt Meadows' guide makes the general point for its own zones: the provincial housing law and the city's zoning bylaw do not override restrictive covenants. It asks every applicant for a State of Title Certificate, which can be ordered through ltsa.ca. Richmond's bulletin gives the same advice, naming covenants that restrict building size and utility rights-of-way as things to look for.

A covenant is also outside the reach of the board of variance. Section 542 (2) of the Local Government Act says the board must not make an order that conflicts with a section 219 covenant. Our Journal post on restrictive covenants goes further into this. Read the title before anyone draws a plan.