CHI: Highway Commercial Industrial

What the zone allows

Homes allowed

No homes except one caretaker unit per lot (ss. B.18, B.34)

Main uses

Outside City Centre: light automotive service (vehicles under 5,000 kg), restaurants and drive-throughs, general services and drive-through banks, indoor recreation including bingo halls, light industry with sales of what it makes, tourist accommodation (a neighbourhood pub with it), parking, some shops (building and garden supply, furniture, appliances, auto and marine parts, boats, sporting goods, feed and tack, auction houses, flea markets indoors, convenience stores, retail warehouses), warehouses, self-storage, car and light truck sales and rentals (with body work), assembly halls, community services, a few offices (engineers and surveyors, contractors, government, utilities), child care, liquor manufacturing with a patio of up to 80 m². Inside the City Centre sub-area, no industry, warehouses, self-storage or vehicle sales and service, but any shop (no adult entertainment stores, secondhand stores or pawnshops) and most offices, and cultural uses. One caretaker unit (s. B)

Smallest lot for a subdivision

1,000 m², 25 m wide, 30 m deep (s. C)

Lot coverage

50%; floor area at most 1.00 times the lot area, tourist accommodation at most half of that; a beverage container return centre at most 418 m² (ss. D, E)

Height limit

9 m for every building and structure (s. G)

Setbacks

7.5 m from every lot line; one side 0 m where it borders land the Official Community Plan designates commercial, mixed employment or industrial (s. F)

The zone is for commercial uses that need big lots and a major highway frontage, which don't fit in shopping centres or town centres (s. A). Which list of uses applies depends on whether the lot is inside the City Centre sub-area (Schedule D): ask the City.

Tourist accommodation here means a hotel or motel with a front desk, stays of at most 182 days in a year, not campgrounds (Part 1 definitions).

Auto painting and body work only for a business that sells or rents vehicles, inside a building, with at most 5 wrecked vehicles kept out of sight (s. J.4).

No outdoor storage between the building and the highway, and none at all inside City Centre; elsewhere it is screened to 2.5 m and piled no higher than 3.5 m (ss. I.3, J.3).

Along land the Official Community Plan designates residential: a planted screen or solid fence at least 1.5 m high; loading areas and garbage screened to 2.5 m (s. I).

No use that makes an unusual fire, explosion or safety hazard (s. J.1(a)).

No use that makes heat or glare seen from the lot line, or noise over 70 dB at a lot line beside land the Official Community Plan designates industrial (60 dB beside other land) (s. J.1).

A caretaker unit is a home inside the main building for the owner or a caretaker, there to protect the business (Part 1 definitions).

Short-term rental isn't a listed use in this zone.

Every use the zone allows depends on City sewer, water, drainage and road works being in place and adequate; where they aren't, the lot may be used only as the A-1 zone allows until the owner extends them on the City's terms (Part 2, ss. B and C; Part 4, s. B.4).

Uses the zone doesn't list aren't allowed (Part 2, s. A).

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 Surrey's planning and development department before you buy or build.

Source: Part 39 of Surrey Zoning By-law, 1993, No. 12000 (summarised in our words, checked 2026-10-04); zone map: Open Government Licence – Surrey.