City Council adopted changes to the Housing Choices Program in July 2019. See the Housing Choices Summary Guide below to understand what the changes mean for your property.
The City of Coquitlam’s Housing Choices Program was adopted in 2011, with the goal of providing new small-scale, ground-oriented housing options in some residential areas of Southwest Coquitlam.
The program exists within the “Neighbourhood Attached Residential” land use designation in the Citywide Official Community Plan (also known as “Housing Choices areas”) and permits a wide range of housing options, ranging from backyard suites, narrow-lot single family homes, duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes and multiplexes. In the Zoning Bylaw, the RT-1 “Infill Residential” and RT-3 “Multiplex Residential” are the zones associated with the Housing Choices Program.
The following table outlines options that apply to properties with the land use designation “Neighbourhood Attached Residential” (NAR) in the Official Community Plan (OCP).
The Housing Choices Summary Guide (PDF) outlines options that apply to properties with the land use designation “Neighbourhood Attached Residential” (NAR) in the Official Community Plan (OCP).
To see if you qualify for a Housing Choices project on your property and to learn more about the housing options, please review:
In mid-2017 the City initiated a review of the Housing Choices Program, to encourage more small-scale projects that add to the range of housing options available for existing residents and new families. The primary goal of the new changes was to “level the playing field” between developing larger, detached single-family homes and smaller, attached forms such as duplex, triplex, fourplex and the new multiplex form. Other objectives behind these changes are to streamline the application processing and approvals process and ensure that Housing Choices projects continue to fit into and refresh existing neighbourhoods.
A few of the most significant changes include:
To learn more, check out our Housing Choices Summary Guide (PDF) or go to Part 11 (RT-1) and Part 12 (RT-3) of the Zoning Bylaw.