RR: Rural Residential

What the zone allows

Homes allowed

One house on a lot of 1.21 ha or less (s. 4.1.3); a house and a cottage on a larger lot (s. 4.1.4); a secondary suite with the house, except in the Schedule E areas (s. 4.1.5)

Main uses

Homes and a cottage, home occupations; farm use, tree harvesting and silviculture, and a portable sawmill for the lot's own logs on lots of 1 ha or more (ss. 4.1.1, 4.1.2); public services, accessory buildings and roadside produce stands as in every zone (s. 2.1.1)

Smallest lot for a subdivision

0.81 ha, or 0.4 ha for a lot on the sea, and 2.02 ha on average (ss. 4.1.10, 4.1.11)

Lot coverage

20% on a lot under 0.4 ha; none set on a larger lot (s. 4.1.6)

Height limit

9 m; farm buildings 15 m (s. 2.3.1)

Setbacks

7.6 m from the front and rear lot lines, 3 m from the interior sides, 4.5 m from a side along a road (ss. 4.1.7, 4.1.8); buildings for animals or poultry 7.6 m from every lot line (s. 4.1.9); 7.6 m from the sea and watercourses (s. 2.5.1)

The zone is for homes on rural-residential lots (our reading of its uses); unlike Rural General it doesn't list home based industry.

Cottage: a building accessory to the house, up to 92.9 m² of floor area (a basement within the main floor's footprint not counted; s. 15.1.9), at least 5 m from a house or another cottage (s. 2.6.1); it may be built before the house (s. 2.10.1).

Secondary suite (ss. 2.18, 15.1.38): one per house, inside the building that holds the house, with its own outside door, up to 90 m² and 40% of the house's floor area, a building permit only once it has enough drinking water, never subdivided or strata-titled from the house; not allowed in the shaded areas of the bylaw's Schedule E map (s. 2.18.5).

Short-term rental (ss. 2.15.9, 15.1.39): a cottage may be rented to guests for less than a month at a time as a home occupation, one cottage per house at a time, run by someone living in the house. The bylaw allows no such rental of the house itself (the zone lists no visitor accommodation; our reading), so ask the Islands Trust before renting a home by the night.

Bed and breakfast (s. 2.15.6): a home occupation with up to three guest bedrooms; breakfast and occasional dinners for paying guests, and up to twelve catered special events a year.

Home occupations (s. 2.15): run by someone living in the house, inside the house or an accessory building (up to 140 m² of accessory buildings used for it), up to two outside employees, no noise, dust or smoke noticeable at the lot line and nothing showing outside but a sign; selling goods not made or grown there on up to a quarter of the buildings and 30 m².

Accessory buildings other than cottages: up to 140 m² of floor area in all for each house on the lot, 3 m from the house, under the zone's setbacks (ss. 2.4.2, 2.4.3); before a house is built, only one storage building up to 61 m² and one utility building or pumphouse up to 9.3 m² (s. 2.4.4).

A recreational vehicle or yurt may be lived in as a home or cottage if it has sewage disposal meeting the Public Health Act and a water supply, within the zone's limits on homes and cottages (s. 2.13); a trailer may be lived in while a house is built under a building permit (s. 2.9).

Farm use, tree harvesting and a portable sawmill for logs from the lot are allowed only on a lot of 1 ha or more; outside the ALR, a lot under 1 ha may not keep cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, bees or similar animals, or more than one horse (s. 2.2.1).

Water (s. 2.5): no building or structure (paving included) within 7.6 m of the natural boundary of the sea or a watercourse; fences, stairs, dock ramps, and one boathouse and one boat storage platform of up to 18.5 m² each per house may be closer to the sea.

In the Eastpoint water management area (the bylaw's Schedule C map), a new home, or an addition over 11.6 m², needs a rainwater catchment system with a cistern of at least 18,000 L (s. 2.17).

Subdivision (Part 12): each lot at least a third as wide as it is deep (s. 12.7); a lot created at twice the average size or more may need a covenant against further subdivision and extra homes (ss. 12.2, 12.3).

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 Islands Trust's office for the island before you buy or build.

Source: Section 4.1 of Saturna Island Land Use Bylaw No. 119, 2018 (summarised in our words, checked 2026-10-11); zone map: Open Government Licence – Islands Trust.