After approving the Vancouver Plan in 2022, the City of Vancouver adopted the Vancouver Official Development Plan (ODP) on March 31, 2026, which replaces the 2022 plan as the guide for how Vancouver will grow over the next 30 years.
The Vancouver ODP categorizes areas of Vancouver into several neighbourhood designations based on “the type, scale, and intensity of change envisioned”: Metro Core/Broadway, Municipal Town Centre, Rapid Transit Area, Neighbourhood Centre, Multiplex Area, Rapid-Transit Overlap Areas, and Villages.
Many of the higher-intensity areas are already well-developed or the subject of separate planning documents like the Broadway Plan, leaving the lower-intensity areas like Villages. To accelerate the implementation of Villages, Council directed City staff in October 2023 to report back on opportunities to pre-zone Village areas to facilitate faster development.
The Villages Planning Program was created in 2024 to develop a land use framework and zoning changes for the following 17 villages:
- Macdonald Street & W 16th Avenue
- Macdonald Street & W King Edward Avenue
- Mackenzie Street & W 33rd Avenue
- Mackenzie Street & W 41st Avenue
- Angus Drive & W 57th Avenue
- Granville Street & W 41st Avenue
- Oak Street & W 49th Avenue
- Oak Street & W 67th Avenue
- Heather Street and W 33rd Avenue
- Fraser Street & E 33rd Avenue
- Knight Street & E 33rd Avenue
- Commercial Street & E 20th Avenue
- Nanaimo Street & E 1st Avenue
- Nanaimo Street & E Broadway
- Victoria Drive & E 61st Avenue
- Wales Street & E 41st Avenue
- Kerr Street & E 54th Avenue
The 17 Villages. (City of Vancouver)
The goals for these 17 Villages are: creating new housing opportunities for low-income and moderate-income households that are located off of busy main streets but are still well-amenitized, expanding existing retail clusters, allowing a variety of mixed-use and residential buildings up to six storeys, co-locating public spaces with shops and community spaces, retaining and improving greenspaces, and supporting village-scale infrastructure like childcare and cultural space.
A big component of the plan is the aforementioned pre-zoning, which is a strategy the City has adopted in numerous areas already, such as areas of the Broadway Corridor and Cambie Corridor. The idea is that pre-zoning areas eliminates the need for developers to submit rezoning applications that usually take a full year to process.
Related to the 17 Villages, the City has proposed pre-rezoning / City-initiated rezoning for approximately 13,000 parcels, which a City staff report said represents 96% of parcels within the Village areas.
“The proposed City-initiated rezoning would apply standard zoning districts that enable new lowrise residential and mixed-use development options supported by the Villages Plan,” said City staff. “The proposed City-initiated rezoning utilizes a mix of existing and three new standard zoning districts. The new standard districts are recommended to respond to specific considerations and objectives for the Villages Plan related to rental replacement and affordable housing requirements but otherwise generally permit the same development options as the existing standard districts.”
For the west side villages — the two on Macdonald Street and two on Mackenzie Street — there will also be affordable housing requirements (or cash-in-lieu) for some development options on large lots, as follows:
- Strata townhouse projects (R3-4), on single large lots 3 not involving lot assembly would be required to provide 8% of residential floor area as social housing or $44 per square foot as cash in lieu.
- Strata residential apartment projects (R3-4) on corner sites eligible for up to 2.0 FSR and that are comprised of one or more large lots would be required to provide 3% of residential floor area as social housing or $16.50 per square foot as cash in lieu.
- Strata mixed-use apartments projects (C-2E) on sites comprised of one or more large existing lots would be required to provide 3% of residential floor area as social housing or $16.50 per square foot as cash in lieu.
- Rental mixed-use apartment projects (C-2E) seeking density above 2.5 FSR and up to 3.5-3.7 FSR would be required to provide 20% of the dwelling unit area as below-market rental housing (with rents at a minimum 10% discount from CMHC city-wide averages).
The City says that although there are a limited number of existing renters in the Villages, so renter displacement is expected to be low, there will still be enhanced tenant protection requirements like those that exist under other community plans.
“Many of the amenities in Villages, such as improvements to the public realm, will be delivered through development,” said staff. “Other improvements and public benefits in and near Villages will be delivered through City programs and capital planning, where they are prioritized within city-wide needs and available funding. Due to the wide geographic scope of the proposed land use changes, it is anticipated that population growth will be gradual and dispersed, allowing the City to monitor service impacts of growth to identify where improvements to existing amenities are needed and where additional amenities should be considered over time.”
According to the staff report, two rounds of public engagement were previously held prior to this latest round, which included the release of the full Draft Villages Plan, and the proposed changes as described above are now set to go to a public hearing that has tentatively been scheduled for Tuesday, July 14.
If adopted, the City will monitor the inclusionary zoning requirements for the west side villages and expects to conduct a city-wide review of inclusionary housing in 2027.
