Vancouver encourages construction of ‘laneway’ small homes to create affordable housing

Nearly 2,000 “laneway houses” have been built in Vancouver, B.C., in the six years after the city council passed legislation to encourage the construction of these small homes. Built in the backyards of single-family homes, these structures are part of an effort to make housing more affordable in a place where the base price for a single-family home now tops one million dollars. Vancouver created the most permissive policy in North America, allowing laneway homes to be built on almost all single-family lots.