Metro Vancouver Zoning
Mapping zoning by-laws from 21 Metro Vancouver municipalities to examine how regulations shape housing supply, dwelling density, and development potential at the lot level.
A collaborative project that digitized and harmonized zoning by-laws from 21 Metro Vancouver municipalities into a single parcel-level dataset. Produced in partnership with Nathan Lauster at the UBC Sociology department and a team of student researchers, the map enables comparison of how land use regulations differ across the region and how they constrain housing supply, dwelling density, and redevelopment potential at the lot level.
The underlying data supports research into how zoning shapes urban form and housing outcomes, and has been used in several academic papers and policy analyses.
Maps
- Metro Vancouver zoning map — current zoning across the region, viewable at the aggregate zoning category level or at the individual parcel level.
- City of Vancouver historical zoning map — how zoning in the City of Vancouver evolved from 1931 to 2020, digitized from archived zoning maps.
Data downloads
Metro Vancouver zoning map layers (gzipped GeoJSON):
- Aggregate zoning — zoning dissolved to harmonized zoning categories
- Parcel zoning — zoning at the individual parcel level
City of Vancouver historical zoning layers, one GeoJSON file per year: