How things have changed

When we built our own homes in 2004, back when we ran a general contracting business, the process looked nothing like it does today.

A set of house plans cost between $1,500 and $3,000. The drawings took about two weeks from start to finish, and the building permit came through in roughly two months. Construction and inspections moved along in a straightforward way.

Getting a builder's licence was just as simple. You signed some paperwork, put down a bond of around $20,000, arranged your home warranty, and you were licensed within a few weeks.

None of that is the case now. Today's process involves more professionals, more documentation, and considerably more time. The exact path depends on the size, style, and location of your building, but the general road map below applies to most projects in British Columbia.

Before any of this begins, you need to own the land. Buying the wrong property can permanently limit where your home sits, how large it can be, and what it can look like. We've written a separate article on what to watch for when purchasing a lot, and it is worth reading before you make an offer.

The process breaks down into four stages:

1. Design and planning
2. Consultants
3. Permits
4. Construction

Stage 1: Design and Planning

This stage starts with a building designer. If you're unsure whether you need a building designer or an architect, we cover the difference in another article.

Every designer works a little differently, and there is no single correct method. What matters is that the process gives you the home you want, with the information the municipality requires. Our own design process runs in this order:

- Feasibility study and site planning
- Floor layout
- Exterior design
- Development permits, variance permits, or rezoning, if required
- Building permit drawings

Feasibility study and site planning

Before any design work starts, your designer needs a **survey of your property**. A surveyor prepares this document, and it should show:

- Property lines
- Edge and centre of the road, including elevations
- Watercourses
- Existing buildings, wells, and retaining walls
- Topography of the property, which is especially important on a hillside lot

Every drawing produced later depends on this information, including existing grade, proposed grade, and the finished height of your home.

Your designer should also order a **title search**. A title search reveals easements, rights-of-way, liens, and other registered interests that affect what you can build. In our experience, title searches regularly turn up items that appear nowhere on municipal maps or on the site survey. Finding these late in the process delays your project and often forces a redesign.

With the survey and title search in hand, your designer prepares a **site plan, or feasibility study**. It shows the property lines, setbacks, easements, rights-of-way, the proposed driveway, the top and bottom of any banks, and the proposed location of your home. It also includes a zoning bylaw analysis confirming that the plan meets the requirements of the municipality having jurisdiction, often shortened to MHJ. The layout may still change as the design develops, but this gives you a solid starting point. Zoning bylaws are published on your municipality's website if you'd like to read them yourself.

Building near water

If your property is near any watercourse, which includes rivers, creeks, sloughs, lakes, and the ocean, your home must sit at least 30 metres from the high water mark or the top of bank, whichever is more restrictive. This protected strip is called the Streamside Protected and Enhanced Area, or SPEA.

The SPEA can sometimes be reduced. To do that, you hire a Qualified Environmental Professional (QEP), who visits the site and determines the location of the high water mark. Your surveyor then surveys the line the QEP has staked, which establishes the exact SPEA boundary. The QEP studies the effect of a reduced setback on wildlife habitat and recommends how much, if any, the SPEA can be reduced without causing harm. On top of the SPEA setback, an additional one or two metres is often required so you can access and maintain the exterior of your home.

This is a good example of why we recommend speaking with a building designer before you buy. A creek is easy to spot on a walk-through. Rights-of-way, easements, and alluvial fans are not.

Floor layout and exterior design

Some designers prepare the concept floor plans first and have you approve them before designing the exterior. In our opinion, this is the more efficient approach and results in less design time overall.

How long this stage takes varies widely. The complexity of the home, how quickly you review each set of concept plans, and how many changes you request all affect the schedule.

Development Variance Permits

A Development Variance Permit (DVP) is a formal request asking the municipality, and by extension the public, for permission to depart from a zoning bylaw requirement. Single family homes need them less often than other projects, but a DVP can be the difference between the home you want and a compromise.

Here is a common example. On a corner lot, you have both a front lot line setback and an exterior lot line setback, and together they squeeze the buildable width of your home more than they would on a standard interior lot. If your design needs that extra width, you can apply for a DVP to encroach into the exterior lot line setback. Variances can also cover building height, parking counts, lot coverage, and floor area ratio.

The process varies between municipalities, but typically your designer prepares:

- The DVP application forms
- A site plan showing exactly what is being requested
- A letter explaining the hardship that makes the variance necessary

Municipalities generally expect to see a genuine hardship behind the request.

A Public engagement is usually required before the application is heard. Someone visits the surrounding neighbours, normally every property within 30 metres, to present the proposed variances so that everyone is informed. Each neighbour receives the site plan and the letter so they can review it with a partner or landlord. You may be asked to have them sign a form confirming that the material was presented, and in some cases they can also sign to indicate support. If a neighbour isn't home, leave the package in the mailbox or at the front door and take a photograph as proof of delivery.

We recommend letting your building designer handle these visits. The purpose is simply to inform your neighbours and let them know when the public hearing takes place. It is not to win them over, and it is not to absorb their complaints. Those conversations can be uncomfortable, and there is no reason for you to be the one having them. Regardless of what is delivered in person, the municipality also mails out the application, site plan, and form.

About two weeks later, municipal staff present the DVP to council at a **public hearing**. Members of the public can speak for or against it. Council then approves the variance, refuses it, or approves it with conditions intended to address neighbours' concerns, such as planting a hedge for privacy.

In our experience, minor variances rarely cause trouble. If one or two neighbours object but the variance clearly won't affect their day-to-day lives, council will listen respectfully and usually proceed. If, on the other hand, you're asking to build a three-storey home one foot from a neighbour's property line, expect a refusal.

Rezoning

Rezoning is a different process from a variance, and a larger one. You need it when the home you want isn't permitted under the current zone at all. For example, if you want to build a single family dwelling plus a coach house, and the current zoning doesn't allow a coach house, a variance won't help. The property has to be rezoned.

The new zone you apply for must conform to the Official Community Plan (OCP), the document your municipality's planning department uses to set the long-term vision for each area of the city. There are usually several zones that fit the OCP for a given property, so there is some choice. As long as your proposed zone conforms, council has little reason to refuse.

Rezoning takes anywhere from 2 to 12 months, and sometimes longer. Timelines differ in every city, and your designer can ask the municipality what is typical right now. The application includes the application form, your payment, and in most cases a rezoning sign posted on the property for a set period before the public hearing.

If a sign is required, hire a sign company that has produced many of them. Municipalities specify the size, layout, and design, and getting it wrong can delay your project. The company should also install and remove the sign on the exact dates required, and provide a photograph with the date and location embedded in the image as proof it was posted on time.

As with a DVP, the public may attend the hearing and speak for or against the application.

Building permit drawings

Building permit drawings can be prepared while you wait for a DVP or rezoning decision, but this carries risk. If the application is refused, the design has to change and the drawings have to be redone.

If your feasibility study has already been reviewed by the municipality, staff can usually tell you whether the proposed location of the home is acceptable and flag any other concerns. Where a variance is involved, staff will rarely confirm that it will be approved. Even when staff support a variance, council makes the final decision, often after hearing public feedback.

Once the floor layout and exterior design are complete, your designer prepares the **building permit (BP) drawings**. This normally takes two to four weeks, depending on the size and complexity of the home and the level of service your designer provides. A complete set includes:

• Floor plans with full dimensions and wall, floor, and roof assemblie,
• Building sections, which cut through the building to show floor heights, stair and landing heights, roof pitch, overall building height, assemblies, and grade elevations
• Details and callouts showing how specific areas of the building are to be constructed.
• A site plan showing the location of the home, property lines, setbacks, easements, rights-of-way, driveway, and landscaping
• A building code analysis confirming the design meets the current building code

The depth of the code analysis varies between designers, from a few notes to several pages. Its purpose is to show the plan checker that the designer has reviewed the drawings against code requirements. Part 9 of the BC Building Code is enormous, and no drawing set can reproduce all of it. Each trade is expected to know the requirements that apply to their own work.

Stage 2: Consultants

Once the BP drawings are complete, they go out to the consultants your project requires. Most projects need a structural engineer, a geotechnical engineer, and an energy advisor. Your designer will normally contact the engineers you've chosen, or send the drawings to several firms for pricing.

Structural engineer.

A good structural engineer produces their own drawings, complete with sections and details. Your designer can send CAD files to make this easier. The engineer strips the drawings back to walls, doors, and windows, then adds their own structural information.

Geotechnical engineer.

On a flat property outside a geohazard area, the geotechnical engineer may only need to confirm the soil bearing capacity, which tells the structural engineer how wide your footings need to be. On a hillside, the work is far more involved. The engineer must determine whether the slope is stable and provide recommendations for building a foundation that keeps the home safe.

Energy advisor.

The energy advisor reviews the wall, floor, and roof assemblies your designer has specified and determines whether any upgrades are needed.

It's worth understanding why this matters. Modern homes are designed as a system rather than as a collection of separate parts. Choosing a furnace is no longer a matter of buying the largest unit you can find. In a well-sealed home where incoming fresh air is pre-warmed by air leaving the house, a much smaller furnace may be all you need, and your monthly heating costs drop accordingly. If your design includes a lot of glass, the energy advisor may recommend additional insulation in the walls or ceiling to offset the heat lost through the windows, or suggest upgrading to triple pane.

Depending on the location and complexity of your project, you may also need a civil engineer, landscape architect, hydrologist, fire underwriter survey, or fire suppression engineer.

Stage 3: Permits

Once all consultants have completed their work, the building permit application can be submitted to the municipality having jurisdiction.

At this point your project is roughly halfway done. The design process typically runs four to six months from the day you engage a designer.

Stage 4: Construction

With permits in hand, a good builder or general contractor should be able to complete your home in about six months.

A realistic expectation

The single most useful thing you can take from this is that design is not a two-week exercise anymore. Between the survey, the title search, the design itself, any variance or rezoning applications, the consultants, and the permit review, you should plan for the better part of a year before construction starts, and longer if rezoning is involved.

Knowing that up front makes the process far less frustrating.

If you have questions about your own project, feel free to reach out to us or to a local designer, or on our forums.

The chart below is a graphical representation of the design and building process of a typical home. Some builds may require more extensive processes or additional requirements. This chart maybe be modified overtime as the building process change over time. 

Note: The graph below may not work when viewing from a mobile phone or Ipad. Please view from your PC.