We are pleased to introduce YA-RR, a site that documents our experience working with the City of Vancouver’s RR rental policy. Adopted by Council in January of 2022, the new RR zones were introduced to streamline the approval for purpose-built rental homes throughout the city. These zones include typologies ranging in scale from townhouses up to six storey mixed-use buildings based on location within the City.  

The new RR zones represent a moment in time within the City’s growth and policy landscape. They demonstrate the City's recognition of challenges faced by developers of rental buildings, and the beginning of a transition from more prescriptive zoning to more open-ended and flexible approaches. The RR rezoning approach also represents a transitional step, leading to an increasing amount of City-initiated Rezoning, or outright approvals of forms such as these in the future.

YA-RR is intended as an on-going series of entries that documents and examines the delivery of mid-rise rental apartments in Vancouver through the lens of projects being done by our office. While RR covers smaller building typologies, our focus will be on the RR-2 and RR-3 zones that describe mid-rise building forms. Our goal with this site is to inform how future guidelines and policies might be written to further streamline the design and approvals process, and to deliver housing in a quicker and more affordable manner. We will also highlight how the current guidelines, developed based on generic (and relatively flat) sites, were adapted to accommodate unique and challenging lots.

YA-RR will track the progress of our current RR projects in different ways, through site specific case studies, photo essays, videos, and dialogues with our Developer partners. Aside from an ongoing analysis of zoning and policy, we will also highlight aspects of project delivery that are normally overlooked, and how everything comes together to contribute to the final building and evolving neighbourhood character.