Burnaby signs on to pre-fab housing resolution along with 10 other cities

You may see more pre-fabricated housing around Metro Vancouver in the years to come, as several cities sign on to a regional resolution to explore allowing these types of dwellings in their communities.

In September, the Metro Vancouver regional district passed a resolution to streamline the pre-fabrication and approval process in order to get more rentals into the housing stock.

Now, 11 municipalities have signed on as “local government champions” to lead the charge, and are expected to work on developing standardized guidelines and zoning regulations.

Burnaby is among the cities to explore the possibility of bringing in six-storey buildings that have been constructed off-site and then transported to their intended locations.

City councillor Alison Gu tells CityNews the goal is to speed up the process to add to the new “missing middle housing.”

“We’re hoping that it will shorten it by up to half, so in two and a half years, we could get an apartment building that would house 60 families actually ready for occupancy,” she said.

Gu says these buildings have some additional benefits.

“I think there’s sometimes a bit of a misconception around what pre-fab can look like and … they can look exactly like a conventional, wood-framed, six-storey apartment building, but they actually tend to be higher quality because they’re built inside, and there’s less waste because everything is built to a specific size and you don’t have to get materials transported in and out,” she explained.

“The historical trend has shown that pre-fab tends to last longer.”

She says traditional builds of the same size often take years from planning to finished construction, adding timelines and approvals can be challenging to navigate.

“That ends up being about five years in total,” Gu said, adding, “the ability to tackle the delays and make sure that housing gets built faster is both at the pre-approval end … as well as the actual construction time.”

Gu says going the pre-fab route will allow paperwork to be done while the homes are already being built, cutting down on timelines.

However, Gu admits while there are a number of positives with pre-fabs, they can cost more at this point, with the councillor saying wood-framed, traditionally built six-store buildings tend to be more affordable to build.