Council asked staff to look at whether the township can stop accepting applications for houseplexes, townhomes and laneway homes while it looks at revising zoning bylaws.
Esquimalt council is considering halting new applications for missing-middle housing projects due to concerns about “jarring” three-story houseplexes being built next to one-storey bungalows.
Council asked staff this week to look at whether the township can stop accepting applications for houseplexes, townhomes and laneway homes while it looks at revising zoning bylaws.
Passed by the province in 2023 to increase housing supply, Bill 44 allows up to four to six units on single-family lots across the province, with the larger number of units allowed on lots near transit corridors.
Mayor Barb Desjardins said she thinks the way the change has been implemented in Esquimalt is affecting the township’s tree canopy and adversely affecting neighbours of the new homes.
Esquimalt’s zoning bylaw was changed in June 2024 to conform to Bill 44, opening up wide swaths of single-family neighbourhoods for possible development.
“We were forced to do a quick sweep, and I don’t think it has served our community well,” Desjardins said at council. “If we can’t do something that immediately sort of puts the brakes on it … at least we could do some minor tweaks and go through into an in-depth process.”
Since June 2024, about 20 applications for so-called missing-middle housing — houseplexes, townhomes and small apartments — have been submitted to the township.
Xeniya Vins said she’s surprised that council is blaming the province and builders for increasing the pace of development in Esquimalt when they passed the zoning bylaws in the first place.
“They’ve taken no responsibility in their part in it, and that’s only if I accept the premise that [three-storey houseplexes] are ruining communities, which I don’t,” she said in an interview. “You told me what to build, I build it, now you call it jarring.”
The architect has been involved in about third of the proposed builds in the township, including a three-storey houseplex next to her home on Colville Road — the first Bill 44-compliant houseplex project ever approved in Esquimalt, which has since stalled due to project financing issues.
She and husband Janos Farkas run a design-build company called Xquimalt Developments that has focused primarily on building in Esquimalt.
They’ve been able to proceed with projects others have passed on partly because they save by doing their designs in-house, Vins said.
Proposing a moratorium based purely on aesthetic concerns of homeowners and residents is premature, given that none of the homes being built in the township under Bill 44 have been completed, she said.
Lenders expect 15 to 18 per cent profit margin on projects, so Vins has to design homes that are acceptable for the market, she said. The required profit margin is there because the construction industry is unpredictable and banks want to be able to recoup investments quickly should a project fail, she said.
Vins said that as a small developer, she would be willing to risk a smaller profit margin, “but that’s not up to us.”
“I like a cute cottage as much as the next guy. If someone was lending money on [building] cute little cottages on million-dollar lots, I’d be the first in line to build those,” she said.
But Vins said if a moratorium on missing-middle housing comes into effect in Esquimalt, builders may be forced to go elsewhere, such as Oak Bay.
Oak Bay’s interpretation of Bill 44 comes with stricter setbacks, lower heights and smaller lot-coverage guidelines, but they still receive a fair amount of missing-middle housing applications because the area is one of the most desirable real-estate markets on Vancouver Island, Vins said.
Matt Williams, a spokesperson for Oak Bay, said the district has received 27 applications for missing-middle infill housing — a total of 84 new homes when built — since it conformed its zoning rules to Bill 44.
Apart from the cost of land, the cost of building new homes in Esquimalt and Oak Bay is identical, but homes in Oak Bay sell for, on average, $200 more per square foot, Vins said.
If the township tightens up its missing-middle housing restrictions, “name me a reason why builders would build in Esquimalt,” she said.
Vins said small developers cannot solve affordability issues alone, as the problem was caused by decades of government policies. “Bill 44 was never meant to bring affordability via any one specific project. It was meant to bring variety of product and affordability over time, based on supply.”
Bill Brown, Esquimalt’s director of development services, acknowledged that some of the builds under construction across the township are “significantly” different in scale from existing homes.
“The neighbours and residents in general feel that the scale is inappropriate for Esquimalt neighbourhoods [and] they’ve told council as much,” he said.
The new provincial rules allow for higher structures in neighbourhoods that have historically been populated by smaller, single-storey homes, causing the “juxtaposition” of a new three-story building and existing one-storey bungalows, he said.
Brown said denser housing brings benefits to Esquimalt businesses, which need a local customer base to survive.
Not all missing-middle housing is evident at first glance, he said. The township has seen applications to convert single-family homes into two or three units by putting up dividing walls and separate entrances, he said.
“You can get a two-bedroom unit easily in 800 square feet,” he said. “Not all small-scale multi-unit developments are big, huge, bulky buildings.”
Bernard Ciriaco, meanwhile, has plans to build a two-storey, 700-square-foot laneway house in the backyard of his childhood home on Gosper Crescent. “No one really goes out back, so may as well put the land for a good use,” he said.
Ciriaco, a carpenter, said he feels lucky that he started the permit process for his parents last fall, ahead of recent council discussions.
Staff are expected to provide council options to address missing-middle housing concerns in early May.