Burnaby, British Columbia — Lower Mainland
The western edge of our regular working area.
The ground in Burnaby.
Burnaby Mountain and Capitol Hill are slope and rock; the ground around Burnaby Lake and the Big Bend flats is soft and wet. Between them the city has some of the region's most-used steep-slope provisions, and a review process that expects the drawings to have anticipated them.
Established lots, high land value, and a strong reason to use every square foot the zoning allows — which usually means a full lower floor doing real work as a suite rather than as storage.
Burnaby reads its steep-slope rules closely, and the drawings are expected to arrive already answering them. [CONFIRM]
Areas we work in
Burnaby
- 01Burnaby Mountain
- 02Capitol Hill
- 03Deer Lake
- 04Forest Glen
- 05Buckingham Heights
- 06Government Road
- 07Big Bend
Not an exhaustive list, and not a boundary — if your lot is in Burnaby and not on it, it is still Burnaby.
What we build here.
Custom home construction in Burnaby
A new house on your lot, drawn for that lot, built once and properly. Most of our work.
Duplexes and multi-family in Burnaby
Side-by-side duplexes and small multi-family, including the strata and servicing work that comes with them.
Legal and secondary suites in Burnaby
Lower floors designed from the start to hold a legal suite, a nanny suite, or both, rather than converted afterwards.
Full rebuilds and major renovation in Burnaby
Taking an existing house back to what is worth keeping and rebuilding the rest to current code and current expectations.
Design-build in Burnaby
One team from the first sketch through the occupancy permit, so the drawings and the budget stay in the same conversation.
Nothing finished in Burnaby yet.
We would rather say that than imply otherwise. Our finished houses are in Coquitlam and South Surrey, and they are the ones worth judging us on — the ground and the process in Burnaby we know from working here, not from a portfolio page. Look at the work, then ask what it would mean on your lot.
Building in Burnaby — the usual questions.
How much does it cost to build a custom home in BC?
There is no honest single number, and a builder who gives you one before seeing your lot is guessing. The cost of a custom home in British Columbia is driven by the site before the finishes: how far the ground has to be engineered, how much of a slope has to be retained, how long the servicing runs are, and what the municipality requires along the way. Two houses of identical size on lots ten minutes apart can differ by a great deal. We would rather look at the parcel, tell you what it is going to demand, and price the real house than quote a per-square-foot figure that changes the moment the geotechnical report lands.
How long does it take to build a custom home?
Plan for the permit to take as long as the construction. The build itself is the part with a schedule you can hold; the approvals before it are the part that varies, and in the municipalities with steep-slope or servicing review that stage can run from a few months to the better part of a year depending on the city and the parcel. The single largest thing you can do to shorten the whole programme is to start the municipal conversation before the design is finalised rather than after.
Can you build a house with a legal suite?
Yes, and it is worth designing in from the beginning rather than adding later. A lower floor planned from the start around a legal suite — separate entry, separate services, the ceiling heights and egress the code wants — costs a fraction of one converted afterwards, and it is most of the reason our recent houses carry two self-contained suites rather than a basement. Several of the municipalities we build in now treat it as the normal shape of a family house.
How do I start a custom home project?
Start with the lot and one conversation. Send us the address and whatever you have — a survey, a sketch, a list of what the house has to do. What comes back is a plain reading of what that parcel is going to demand before any design is committed to, which is the most useful hour in the whole project. Call 604-300-3107 or use the enquiry form and it reaches Tanvir Bhangal directly.
Thinking about building in Burnaby?
Send the address of the lot. What comes back is a plain reading of what that parcel is going to demand, before anything is drawn.