I’ll tell you in a minute, but first you need to get in line…

OK – It’s your turn

In fairness, City of Vancouver has been working hard as of late to streamline the new house building permit process with dedicated staff. Just the shear number of applications is very large with 224 (two hundred and twenty four) residential permit applications just in October 2016 alone.

The cost of getting a permit includes the permit fee itself, and then a host of other city required upgrades and charges. Obviously, there are many variables like whether your tearing down an existing house, if that demo falls under the recycling/re-use bylaw, upgrading utility services, whether storm and sewer were combined previously, depth of services, the value of the new house, zoning, and other considerations.   But let’s look at one of the most common situations – single family dwelling on a 33 foot wide by 122 foot deep lot, RS1 zone in Vancouver, requiring a tear down.

Here are how the costs shook out on our latest permit application:

City of Vancouver Engineering Services
inspection	$293
Sewer Connection	$16,080
water connection	$6,719
total	$23,092
PLUS
Demolition
City Demolition Deposit (refundable**)	$14,650
Waste compliance fee	$350
Total	$15,000
PLUS
Building, Development and demolition
Building Permit fee	$3,000
Demolition fee	$321
Development fee	$2,000
Drain tile inspection fee	$166
Damage deposit fee (refundable)	$2,000
Total	$7,487

 

The total of the three categories above is $45,579, and if you get the full damage deposits back (public improvements damage deposit $2,000 and $14,650 demolition deposit) of $16,650 then your net fees to the City to build a house is $28,929

This total will vary for each circumstance, cost of improvement and conditions, but this is a typical permit cost range.

** for houses you want to demolish built before 1940 (1950 after January 1^st, 2017) the City requires that 75% by weight of that house is re-used / recycled (reducing waste to landfills, and part of greenest city on earth movement). Unless the house is deemed a character house, then 90% needs to be re-used or recycled. You need to evidence documents proving you met these conditions, and the deposit will be refunded. Note, see this for City bulletin with full details.

Then don’t forget the Home Owner Protection exams and fees, energy consultant fee, geotechnical engineer fee, arborist fee, surveyor fee, structural engineer fee, and all associated paperwork. It might be a good idea to find a competent contractor like Alair Homes Vancouver to look after all this.