Zoning Bylaw Rewrite

The project team has been busy rewriting the Zoning Bylaw and the first draft is now available for public input. Please view the online virtual open house to learn about the proposed updates and take the survey to share your thoughts! If you have any questions, please use the Zoning Questions Corner tool.

Virtual Open House (VOH)

May 16 to June 20
Access the VOH

Online Survey

May 16 to June 20

Take the survey

Local builders, developers, and property owners are invited to participate in a Small-Scale Multi-Unit Development Design Workshop hosted by the City of Whitehorse and Kobayashi + Zedda Architects.

Developer Workshop
Date: Monday, January 20
Time: 8 am to 12 pm
Location: Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre – Lu Zil Män / Multi-Purpose Room (1171 1st Avenue)
Register Here

General Public Workshop
Date: Tuesday, January 28
Time: 5 pm to 9 pm
Location: Baked Café (100 Main Street)
Register Here

In April 2024, Council adopted Bylaw 2024-16, a bylaw to amend the Zoning Bylaw to enable a wider range of opportunities for residential development within the City’s neighbourhoods. This included permitting up to four units per lot on all urban residential lots.

The workshops are an opportunity for builders and property owners to learn more about these changes, and design considerations, and workshop a small-scale multi-unit housing design with local architects and City staff. Attendees will be able to workshop their own designs and plans, with the local architects and City staff available to assist and answer questions. Attendees will also have the option of working on a sample design. To have materials prepared for your design, please submit the materials you have here one week before the date you wish to attend.

Kobayashi + Zedda architects will be facilitating the workshops and will lead a presentation on considerations for the development of small-scale multi-unit housing in Whitehorse and facilitate the following workshop.

The General Public workshop is intended for individuals interested in developing dwelling units on their own property.

The Developer Workshop is intended for businesses and organizations who undertake development as a profession, including: builders, land developers, governments, non-profit organizations, and development professionals (e.g. architects, designers, etc.).

Light refreshments will be provided. Attendance is limited, please register in advance to secure your attendance.

To host these workshops, The City of Whitehorse received financing from CMHC, however, the views expressed are the personal views of the author and CMHC accepts no responsibility for them.

Thank you to those who were able to attend the webinar(s) for a Guide for Developing Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing. Please take a few minutes to complete our exit survey and let us know to what degree the webinar was useful for you. We would also appreciate feedback on the topics covered, and if you would like any future events and materials to cover additional topics or certain topics in more depth.

Exit Survey Link

If you were not able to attend or would like to review the webinar, the webinar recordings and slide deck are available at the links below and on the left of this page under Documents and Videos.

Webinar Slide Deck

Webinar General Public

Webinar Professional Developers

If you have any questions or would like to provide feedback directly, please email planning@whitehorse.ca

The City has published a Guide for Developing Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing. The guide is intended to communicate the new zoning changes for anyone interested in adding additional dwelling units to an urban residential lot.

This guide is also intended to highlight various site and building design considerations that must be addressed when developing up to four dwelling units on an urban residential lot.

This is a living document and will be updated as new regulations come into effect. Notably, a new Zoning Bylaw will come into effect in 2025. The names of zones may change and/or some zones may consolidate into one zone. Development regulations may also undergo further changes

In April 2024, Council adopted Bylaw 2024-16, a bylaw to amend the Zoning Bylaw to enable a wider range of opportunities for residential development within the City’s neighbourhoods.

To promote these changes and assist prospective developers with the implementation of these new regulations, the City staff will present a Guide for Developing Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing.

The guide will include a summary of the new zoning regulations, design considerations for implementation, such as development regulations, building code and engineering regulations, fees and charges, potential unit configurations and resources available to assist developers.

City staff will give a presentation summarizing the contents of the document and be available for questions and comments after the presentation

Anyone is welcome to attend either or both webinars. The Professional Developers webinar will be geared towards individuals and companies currently working in the development industry. As such, the attendee's knowledge of certain development regulations may be assumed by presenters.

The General Public webinar will be geared towards individuals who have never undertaken a major development project (for example, developing a dwelling unit).

Each webinar will be recorded, and recordings will be made available to the public as soon as possible.

Thank you to everyone who participated in engagement on Short-Term Rentals (STRs) we conducted in August and September. We are excited to release the Engagement Summary Report which summarizes the input we received from over 1900 survey responses and 10 stakeholder interviews. Feedback provided through this engagement along with best practices research and a technical review will inform the development of recommendations for a potential regulations to manage STRs in Whitehorse.

The survey is now closed. Thank you to everyone who completed the survey – we received over 1900 responses!

We are now preparing a What We Heard report summarizing the input received through the survey. The results will be provided later in October.

Your feedback, along with interested party feedback and best practices data, will be used to inform the draft Zoning Bylaw, including any proposed new short-term rental regulations. The draft bylaw will then be presented in late 2024/early 2025, for public and interested party feedback, to help the City finalize the bylaw for Council review and approval.

At their regular meeting on Monday, April 22, 2024, Council adopted Bylaw 2024-16, a bylaw to amend the Zoning Bylaw to enable a wider range of opportunities for residential development. The new regulations are summarized as follows:

1. Allow up to four (4) units per lot in all urban ‘single detached’ residential zones;
2. Relax site coverage and setbacks in some zones where additional units are provided;
3. Relax living and garden suite regulations to allow them in more places:
   • Allow suites in RR zone
   • Allow suites in duplex, triplex, and townhouse housing
   • Allow two suites on any lot where suites are allowed
4. Enable more units in RCM – Comprehensive Residential Multiple Family and RCM3 – Cottage Cluster Homes zones; and
5. Relax some parking regulations:
   • Eliminate visitor parking and loading space requirements for multiple housing in commercial zones
   • Reduce parking requirements for living/garden suites

These amendments will be incorporated into a new consolidation of the Zoning Bylaw, to be released shortly. We will also be updating our application forms and handouts in the coming weeks.

You can read our guide to the new regulations here.

A copy of the Public Hearing Report is now available. Read it here.