Burnaby Land Assemblies

Burnaby has been planning for high-density, transit-oriented growth for years through its four town centres; Metrotown, Brentwood, Edmonds and Lougheed, and is now layering the Province’s Transit-Oriented Area (TOA) rules under Bill 47 on top of that framework.

The Province requires cities to designate TOAs within 800 metres of SkyTrain stations and 400 metres of major bus exchanges, with minimum heights, densities and no residential parking minimums. Burnaby adopted its TOA designation bylaw in December 2024, formally mapping TOAs around key stations and identifying 14 areas where these rules apply. 

At the same time, Burnaby is working on Burnaby 2050, a long-range community plan that explores how to accommodate roughly 68,000 new housing units and 146,000 additional residents by 2050, with growth scenarios that emphasize higher density near transit and more townhouses/low-rise apartments as transitions.

The City even tried to secure exemptions for portions of Brentwood from some of the new provincial density rules, but the Province declined, reinforcing that land near SkyTrain hubs is “ideal” for increasing housing supply.

All of this makes Burnaby one of the core municipalities in Metro Vancouver where land assemblies around transit are front-and-centre.