Data · re-checked 21 September 2026
The backyard home rules that changed, and the pages that did not
Rules for laneway homes, garden suites and carriage houses in Canada changed a lot between 2023 and 2025, and a federal loan program for secondary suites was cancelled before it opened. On 17 September 2026 we searched for 6 of those changes and recorded the exact sentence on each page that still presented one as current. On 21 September 2026 we opened every page again. 32 still carried the sentence.
No site is named here. The point is how widespread this is, not who to blame. This is a count of what we found, not a share of all pages, and it says nothing about the pages that get these rules right. Free to cite or link with credit. The method is at the bottom.
01 — Citing the official source did not help
11 of the 32 pages still publishing a superseded rule link to an official page about that same rule or program: a City bylaw or guide, a zoning map, a federal announcement. They did the thing you are told to do. The rule changed, and the sentence on the page did not.
One group is not municipal at all. 11 pages still describe the federal Canada Secondary Suite Loan Program as open or about to open, several with steps to apply. It never launched, and Budget 2025 confirmed it will not be implemented.
02 — The rules, and what is actually true
| Still published | What these pages say | What the document says | Changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11/ 11Canada | Homeowners can borrow up to $80,000 through the federal Canada Secondary Suite Loan Program, launching in early 2025, with steps to apply | The program never opened. Budget 2025 says it “is not yet operational” and “will not be implemented.”Budget 2025, Annex 3 | Budget 2025 |
| 8/ 8Toronto | Toronto garden suites must stay inside 45-degree angular planes, and are capped at a 60 m² footprint | Council deleted the garden suite angular plane rules and set the cap at 120 m² of gross floor area, or 60 m² for a single-storey suite.By-law 849-2025 | 24 July 2025 |
| 6/ 6Vancouver | A Vancouver laneway house is capped at about 900 sq ft, or must sit on an RS-zoned lot | The cap is the lesser of 0.25 × site area and 186 m² (2,000 sq ft). R1-1 replaced every former RS zone.Zoning and Development By-law s.11.3.8.2 | 17 October 2023 |
| 5/ 6Burnaby | A Burnaby laneway home is capped at a share of the lot, up to a fixed maximum floor area | The maximum floor area was removed. The City now states there is no set limit; height, setbacks and lot coverage decide what fits.Burnaby R1 Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing District | June 2024 |
| 1/ 1Vancouver | A Vancouver laneway house requires an off-street parking space | Parking minimums were removed city-wide. A space may be provided but is not required.Parking By-law No. 6059 s.4.1.1 | 30 June 2024 |
| 1/ 1Nanaimo | A Nanaimo carriage house is capped at 90 m², and a lot without a corner or lane needs at least 800 m² | The cap is 100 m², and a lot of 500 m² or more now qualifies, as do corner, lane-access and through lots.Zoning Amendment Bylaw 4500.223 | 17 June 2024 |
The first column reads: pages still carrying the sentence on 21 September 2026, out of the pages recorded on 17 September 2026.
03 — Method, and what this does not show
- On 17 September 2026 we searched for each superseded figure and recorded the exact sentence on every page that stated it. On 21 September 2026 we opened every page again and tested for that sentence. A search result summary was never accepted as evidence.
- A page is counted only if a reader today would take the sentence as the current rule, or the program as available. Pages that report a proposal as a proposal, or tell the reader to confirm the current rules, are not counted. Neither is a sentence about a different program than the row, such as a suite inside a house rather than a carriage house.
- We recorded 50 pages. On a second reading, 16 did not meet that test and were left out, including one that already reported the change. One page no longer carried its sentence when we went back. One page could not be read and is reported as unverified, never as corrected.
- This is a count, not a rate. The pages were found by searching for the superseded figures, so the number answers “how many pages can a homeowner find that still say this”, not “what share of pages are wrong”. We did not count the pages that get these rules right.
- We build backyard homes, so we are not a neutral party. That is also why every row names the governing document rather than asking you to take our word for it.