Laneway Housing

:: Photo via LaneFab

Laneway housing is a micro-housing concept from Vancouver. It is an infill housing scheme that takes advantage of the extensive lane network found behind many Vancouver homes. A change in municipal legislation now authorizes homeowners to transform their laneway garages into rental housing.

:: Photo via cbc.ca

An estimated 70,000 lots across the city are eligible to transform their garages into small, attractive efficient houses of up to 46 square meter (500 feet) homes and 1 and a half stories high.

:: Image via Good Magazine

LaneFab is a new company born from the collaboration of Mat Turner,a carpenter, and Bryn Davidson, a designer. LaneFab offers different layouts for one bed or two bed houses with parking or garage options for one or two cars. The typical house is between 500 and 800 square feet and costs about $130,000 including the demolition of the existing structure and could generate just over $10,000 in revenue.

:: Photo via Smallworks

LaneFab is not the only company that specializes in Laneway housing with the company Smallworks also offering a Laneway Loft House solution complete with a greenroof amongst others.

Lanefab argues laneway housing has the potential, through a combination of efficiency and upgrades to the adjacent home’s existing fixtures, to actually reduce a given home’s environmental impact. Development across an entire block or a city could produce significant environmental improvements.

“If we want to do anything about climate change or peak oil at a big picture level, individual green houses won’t do anything for us, but if we can do small infill dwellings in walkable, transit-accessible neighborhoods, then I think it’s really about as good a thing as you can do if you’re going to be building” Davidson says.