Laneway House Vancouver: Permits at Their Lowest in Records Back to 2017, Costs Up, Approvals Faster (2026)

The City of Vancouver has issued 198 building permits for new laneway houses this year, from January 1 to October 28. That's the lowest count for that stretch of the year in any year since at least 2017, down 38% from 321 in 2025 and 71% from 677 in 2018.

Over the same years, the declared construction value on a typical laneway permit went from about $185K to $350K, and permits started coming out faster. So laneways got quicker to approve, much more expensive to build, and a lot less popular. Below is what the City's own permit records show, where they're still being built, and how I'd think about one if you own a house with a lane.

Source: City of Vancouver Open Data, Issued building permits (new-building permits classed as Laneway House, issued January 2017 to October 28, 2026; EstateBlock analysis).

Laneway permits by year

Laneways peaked in 2018 at 677 permits in this window (729 for the full year), the same year Council simplified the rules. The City's City of Vancouver, Laneway houses and secondary suites page says the changes Council enacted on October 30, 2018 were meant to make it easier and more cost effective to build laneway houses. Permits fell to 224 in 2021, bounced to 399 in 2022, and sat in the low-to-mid 300s through 2024 and 2025 before this year's drop.

Source: City of Vancouver Open Data, Issued building permits (new-building permits classed as Laneway House, issued January 2017 to October 28, 2026; EstateBlock analysis).

The quarterly view shows when it turned. Through 2024 and the first three quarters of 2025, the City issued roughly 75 to 120 laneway permits a quarter, including 100 and 99 in the middle of 2025. Since then it's been 68, 68, 63 and 47. October has 20.

Why fewer laneways: the multiplex and the price of a house

Two things changed around the same time. The first is zoning. In September 2023 Council adopted the R1-1 zone, which covers about 65,000 lots and lets them hold three to six ownership units (strata tenure) or up to eight secured rental units, per a May 2025 City memo. A laneway is still possible: the R1-1 district schedule says single detached houses may include additional dwelling units such as secondary suites and laneway houses, with laneway house listed as a conditional use. But an owner or builder who's going to rebuild a lot now has a bigger option.

The permit counts line up with that. From January 1 to October 28 this year, the City issued 237 permits for multiplexes and 119 for new single-family houses, against 198 for laneways. I covered the multiplex numbers in detail in my multiplex Vancouver post.

The second is the type of laneway being built. The City files each laneway permit under one of two categories: "New Build - Standalone Laneway" or "New Build - Low Density Housing". The labels suggest the first is a laneway built as its own project and the second a laneway filed as part of a broader low-density build, though the City doesn't define them and the project descriptions look alike.

In 2018, 408 of the 729 laneway permits were filed under the low-density category and 321 as standalone. By 2025 that had flipped hard: 258 standalone and only 107 low-density. This year it's 125 and 73.

My read: if the low-density category is mostly "new house plus laneway" rebuilds, as the label suggests, that's the part that collapsed, and it's the part a multiplex replaces most directly. Standalone laneways, which I'd guess are mostly owners adding a unit behind a house they keep, are still being built, but there are fewer of them too, down to 125 so far this year from 296 in all of 2024.

What a laneway costs to build, and how long the permit takes

For seven years (2017 to 2023) the median laneway permit declared a construction value between $185K and $200K. Then it jumped to $300K in 2024 and $350K this year. That's the value declared on the permit, not a final invoice, and part of the jump may reflect how values are declared rather than real costs, so I wouldn't use it as a quote. But as a direction it matches what you'd expect after years of construction cost increases, and it's a big reason the numbers on a laneway are harder to make work than they were in 2018.

Approval times moved the other way. The median laneway permit issued in 2023 took 252 days from the permit number being created to issue. Since 2024 it's been about three to four months: 106 days in 2024, 126 in 2025 and 101.5 so far this year. That's faster than a multiplex, which took a median of 192 days this year in the same data.

Source: City of Vancouver Open Data, Issued building permits (new-building permits classed as Laneway House, issued January 2017 to October 28, 2026; EstateBlock analysis). Storeys parsed from the permit description text; a few permits don't state it, so rows may not add to 100%.

The design has standardized too. In 2020, 41% of laneway permits described a 1.5-storey building and 16% a one-storey one. This year 191 of 198 permits are for two storeys. If you're pricing a lot with an older one-storey or 1.5-storey laneway, the comparable new product is now a two-storey unit.

Where laneway houses are being built

Kensington-Cedar Cottage leads this year with 23, followed by Sunset (22), Dunbar-Southlands (20), Renfrew-Collingwood and Victoria-Fraserview (19 each). The geography has shifted west. In 2017 and 2018 combined, six east-side areas (Sunset, Victoria-Fraserview, Renfrew-Collingwood, Kensington-Cedar Cottage, Hastings-Sunrise and Killarney) accounted for 73% of laneway permits, and five west-side areas (Dunbar-Southlands, West Point Grey, Kerrisdale, Arbutus Ridge and Shaughnessy) for 12%. This year it's 57% and 31%.

Source: City of Vancouver Open Data, Issued building permits (new-building permits classed as Laneway House, issued January 2017 to October 28, 2026; EstateBlock analysis).

Hastings-Sunrise shows the shift most clearly. It averaged 86 laneway permits a year in 2017–18 and has 16 this year, while it's had more multiplex permits than any other local area since 2024 (101, to October 28). Sunset and Victoria-Fraserview, the two busiest laneway areas in 2017–18, are down from averages of 102 and 93 a year to 22 and 19.

The house underneath: what Vancouver lots are selling and asking

A laneway adds a unit to a house you already own, so the economics depend on what the house is worth and what you'd do with it otherwise. GVR's benchmark detached price was $1.63M in Vancouver East in September, −7.7% in a year, and $2.92M in Vancouver West, −8.7%. On EstateBlock today there are 1,273 Vancouver houses for sale at a median asking price of $2.79M, $982 per square foot, with a median 73 days on market. Those are asking prices of active listings, not sales.

Sources: Greater Vancouver REALTORS®, September 2026 stats package (MLS® HPI, sales-based); laneway value from City of Vancouver Open Data, Issued building permits (new-building permits classed as Laneway House, issued January 2017 to October 28, 2026; EstateBlock analysis).

In other words, the median declared laneway build is about 21% of a benchmark East Van house and 12% of a West Side one. My read: that's one reason laneways have been far more common on the east side: the same building is a bigger bet relative to the property on the west side, though a west-side lot's size and rents can change that.

When you sell, buyers will look at a finished laneway as a rental suite, a family suite or a home office. It can add to what the house sells for, but I wouldn't assume the full construction cost comes back. Price it against recent sales of houses with laneways on similar lots nearby.

My read

For the bigger picture, see my Vancouver housing starts post and the Vancouver rental market numbers, which are what a laneway rent competes with. For how the province's small-scale multi-unit housing rules apply to a lot, see my Bill 44 explainer. Rules change, so confirm what applies to your lot with the City before you design anything.