RS4-i: Duplex Residential Zone, Infill

What the zone allows

Homes allowed

One duplex (strata or fee simple); the zone lists no single detached house and no secondary suite

Main uses

Duplex; short-term rental, boarders, Level 1 home occupation

Smallest lot for a subdivision

540 m² for a duplex, 270 m² for each half of a duplex split along a side lot line; 18.0 m wide and 18.0 m of frontage (9.0 m for each half); 25.0 m deep; no through or panhandle lots, except a through lot backing onto a controlled access highway or arterial with its front on the lesser road (s. 365.6.6)

Lot coverage

40%

Height limit

Main building 9.5 m or three storeys, whichever is less; accessory buildings 4.5 m

Setbacks

Front 6.0 m; rear 6.0 m (accessory 1.5 m); interior side 1.5 m, 0.0 m where the duplex is built on the side lot line (accessory 1.5 m); street side 4.5 m; 1.5 m between the main building and accessory buildings

Density: floor space ratio 0.5 (s. 365.3.1).

Garages and driveways (ss. 365.6.1, 365.6.2): one attached garage per home, at most 4.0 m wide inside; one driveway per home, at most 3.0 m wide at the lot line, and the two joined to at most 6.0 m, except on a corner lot on two local roads.

A duplex split along a side lot line is designed and built as one, under a party wall agreement; with lane access, a shared garage for both homes may also sit on that line, under a party wall agreement, each half at most 4.0 m wide inside and not in front of the house (ss. 365.6.3, 365.6.4).

Floor area under a ceiling more than 4.3 m high counts twice toward gross floor area (s. 365.6.5).

A basement may stand at most 1.4 m above the average finished grade (s. 365.3.8).

The secondary suite allowance for every single detached house (s. 140.3.8(a)) doesn't reach a duplex, and this zone lists no suite, so the duplex homes here hold none under the zone itself.

A use the zone's table doesn't list, and that s. 140 or s. 200.1 doesn't allow everywhere, is not allowed (s. 130.1).

Short-term rental is a permitted accessory use here. The bylaw defines it as paid nightly accommodation, accessory to a home, where no guest stays more than 30 days in any 12 months (s. 120), and requires that the host's principal residence must be on the lot; only in a single detached house or a duplex, plus, for each principal home, one of its secondary suite, garden suite, coach house or accessory farm home; at most six guests and three guest bedrooms per principal home; one parking space for each rental on top of the lot's other parking; never on a lot with boarders or a boarding house (s. 140.3.1).

Boarders (s. 140.3.2): in a house or duplex, up to four in the principal home, two per bedroom, never together with a short-term rental; in an apartment, townhouse or rowhouse, one boarder, not in a building with supported housing or congregate care. Parking: one space per bedroom in a house or duplex (s. 150.3).

Home occupation, Level 1 (s. 140.3.5(a)): inside the home, by its residents only; no nuisance (noise, smell, traffic and the like), no outside storage, and no outward change to the home's residential look; no customer visits and no sign. No extra parking (s. 150.3).

Every single detached house, in any zone, may hold one secondary suite, a home inside it that stays part of the same property (ss. 120, 140.3.8(a)).

Small-scale multi-unit housing (s. 140.2.12): inside the official community plan's Urban Development Boundary, a lot zoned for a single detached house or a duplex, and allowing fewer than three homes, may hold three homes if 280 m² or smaller and four if larger, as houses, duplexes, secondary suites and (only where the zone lists them) garden suites or coach houses, under the zone's own development rules. This doesn't apply to lots of 4,050 m² or more, heritage-protected lots, or lots in a transit-oriented area.

Accessory buildings go up only with or after the main building or use; one attached to the main building counts as part of it and keeps its setbacks (s. 140.4.1).

Chimneys, sills and bay windows may reach 0.6 m into a setback; steps, eaves, canopies, cantilevered balconies and open porches 1.2 m into front, rear and side-street setbacks and 0.6 m into interior side setbacks and between buildings; below-grade window wells, stairs and ramps anywhere (s. 140.4.2).

Fences and walls up to 1.2 m between the house and the front lot line and beside it along a flanking street, and up to 1.8 m behind and beside it elsewhere (Figure 3); measured from existing grade, a fence within 1.0 m of a retaining wall counting the wall's height; no barbed, razor or electric wire (s. 140.5.2).

A shipping container may not be used for storage where a single detached house or duplex is the main use in this zone (s. 140.5.1).

No commercial vehicle or trailer over 5,500 kg, and no boat over 8.6 m, parked or stored outside a building (s. 140.5.4).

No vehicle, recreational vehicle or trailer may be parked or stored on a lawn or landscaped area (s. 140.5.4(d)).

Home child care in a single detached house, run by someone living there: up to 8 children in any zone allowing a house (s. 140.2.9); up to 16 children except on a lot whose zone allows farming (the A zones, RR and CR among them) or in the ALR, and never on a cul-de-sac (s. 140.2.8). Neither on a lot with boarders, a boarding house, a secondary suite, residential care, supported housing or a home occupation of Level 2 or higher, and the larger one not with a coach house or garden suite either.

Urban beekeeping on a lot with only one single detached house, by a beekeeper registered with the Province: none under 540 m², two hives (and two nucleus colonies) from 540 m², four from 1,000 m², six from 2,000 m²; hives behind the house, behind a 1.8 m solid fence or hedge, their entrance 6.0 m and their sides 3.0 m from lot lines, with water on the lot; not on lots that allow farming (s. 140.2.11).

Supported housing (s. 140.2.7), always under a housing agreement with the City: in an apartment or dormitory in any zone, on the RMM zone's terms, except on a lot whose zone allows farming or in the ALR; and in a single detached house in any residential zone outside the farm zones and the ALR, for up to ten residents, at least 200 m from other supported housing or a school (homes licensed before April 1, 2008 aside), never on a lot with a secondary suite, garden suite, coach house, residential care, boarding house, home child care or home occupation, and with no outward sign of a non-residential use.

Parking (s. 150.3): 2 spaces per single detached house or duplex home; 1 per secondary suite, garden suite, coach house or accessory farm home; 1 per short-term rental; 1 per boarder's bedroom; 1 or 2 more for a home occupation's employees (Level 2 or higher).

Inside a transit-oriented area (s. 150.5.6, Figure 2), homes need no minimum parking, though accessible spaces are still required (s. 150.7.5); other uses keep their rates.

New residential buildings give each home with required parking an energized outlet for Level 2 charging (s. 150.6).

No building within 15.0 m of the natural boundary of a lake, slough, swamp, pond or watercourse (tributaries included); 30.0 m from Nathan Creek, Poignant Creek, Clayburn Creek east of Old Clayburn Road and the Sumas River in its floodplain; 60.0 m from the Fraser River in its floodplain; 15.0 m from the inside toe of a dyke or its right-of-way, whichever is more; 7.5 m from a ditch. Fill used to raise a building stays out of these setbacks (ss. 140.8.7, 140.8.8).

Floodproofing (s. 140.8, Schedule E): in the Sumas Lake Bottom, Sumas Prairie, Huntingdon, Matsqui Prairie, Glen Valley and Sumas River areas (A to G), the Fishtrap Creek 100-year floodplain (H) and the watercourse setback areas, floors of living space sit at or above the area's level in Table 1 (for example 11.1 m GSC in areas A, B and D, 9.8 m in Matsqui Prairie, 8.5 m in Glen Valley), or at a lower "reduced" level in areas A, B, E and F where the owner signs a covenant with the City and the Province; farm buildings, renovations and small additions can be exempted under a covenant (s. 140.8.6). The rule printed as floors "not less than 1.5 m above the natural boundary" of a watercourse (s. 140.8.3(c)) reads as a prohibition of floors that high, so how high a floor near a watercourse must sit is unclear; ask the City of Abbotsford.

Nothing may be built on the river side of a dyke or on an island in the Fraser River (s. 140.8.2).

At street corners, a sight triangle (Figure 2) is kept clear of buildings, structures and plants between 1.0 m and 3.0 m above the street (s. 140.4.9).

No vehicle, recreational vehicles included, may be lived in, except that a visitor's RV may be used for up to 72 hours in a row in any 30 days (s. 140.4.11).

Wrecked vehicles only where the zone allows them or a business on the lot needs them, and then inside a building or behind a fence or wall that hides them (s. 140.5.3).

Growing, processing, storing or selling cannabis is not allowed in any zone unless the bylaw provides for it, subject to the provincial ALR rules (s. 140.2.5); cannabis production is a farm use only in the A1 to A6 zones (s. 120).

Every zone also allows public service works and utilities, parks, and seasonal Christmas tree sales (s. 140.1); an emergency shelter on a lot that doesn't border one with homes, under a housing agreement (s. 140.2.3); a temporary accessory emergency shelter during a declared emergency or an extreme weather alert, except on lots whose zone allows farming or in the ALR (ss. 140.2.1, 140.2.2); and soil extraction inside the official community plan's Soil Removal Eligibility Area, under the soil bylaw (s. 140.2.4).

Site-specific exceptions listed in the bylaw by legal description can add or change uses for one property, and development permit areas, the ALR and building rules apply on top. Confirm with the City of Abbotsford's planning and development services before you buy or build.

Source: Section 365 of City of Abbotsford Zoning Bylaw No. 2400-2014 (summarised in our words); zone map: Open Government Licence – City of Abbotsford.