A Tale of Four Cities: How the Okanagan Valley Mapped Bill 44

One provincial mandate. Four completely different municipal realities.

The provincial government passed Bill 44 as a blanket mandate: allow 3 to 6 units on single-family lots. But land-use policy is ultimately executed by local municipalities through zoning bylaws and GIS databases.

When you map every parcel across the Okanagan Valley, you realize there is no single "Bill 44" - there are four entirely different implementations. From Kelowna's aggressive rezoning to Vernon's form-based approach, each city interpreted the mandate through its own administrative lens.

The Arithmetic of Zoning: Comparing the Rules

When mapping the Okanagan Valley, an incredible regional consensus emerges: every major city abandoned Floor Space Ratio (FSR). Unlike Metro Vancouver, where municipalities still cling to complex density formulas, the Interior has fully embraced form-based zoning.

By regulating only Height (a uniform 11.0m across all four cities) and Lot Coverage, builders in the Okanagan have incredibly predictable math. Vernon goes a step further, dropping lot coverage entirely to let setbacks dictate the building form.

The Municipal Vibe Check

Action: Rezoned its entire core to MF1 long before other cities finished their bylaws.

Approach: A complete rewrite allowing up to 6 units outright without relying heavily on complex transit mapping for its core areas.

Result: Kelowna established itself as the most aggressive pro-housing municipality in the interior.

Action: Created the RP1 "Residential Plex" zone.

Approach: Stuck strictly to the provincial minimum of 4 units, giving a solid 50% lot coverage.

Result: Extremely predictable development math without the complexity of transit tiers.

Action: Divided its SSMUH response into R4-S (Small Lot) and R4-L (Large Lot).

Approach: Tailored the lot coverage (40% vs 50%) depending on the underlying lot size, but kept the hard cap at 4 units.

Result: A highly geometric implementation that prevents massive multiplexes on small lots.

Action: Created the MUS (Multi-Unit Small Scale) zone.

Approach: Abandoned lot coverage maximums entirely, alongside FSR, regulating building volume purely by height and setbacks.

Result: Allows up to 6 units if near transit, otherwise 4, with massive flexibility in footprint.

The limits of a blanket policy

The province passed a single piece of legislation, but a mandate is only as good as the local bylaw that enforces it. The reality of building housing in British Columbia is that local constraints - whether they take the form of sewer lines, heritage designations, or simple zoning geometries - still dictate what actually gets built.

By attempting to unify zoning across the province, Bill 44 highlighted exactly how fractured and localized land use policy remains. If you are a builder trying to make sense of the new rules, you don't just need to know the provincial mandate. You need to know exactly which municipality you are standing in.

"You can mandate density from Victoria, but you can't bypass the local GIS server."

Explore the Maps

See exactly how these different approaches impact every single parcel in the Okanagan Valley. Click on a property to view its precise capacity.

Parcel counts and unit capacities are derived from the respective Open Data portals of Kelowna, West Kelowna, Penticton, and Vernon.

Implementations of SSMUH (Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing) were cross-referenced with local bylaws and infrastructure maps as of September 2026.