If your North Vancouver renovation moves a wall, adds a suite, opens a basement, enlarges the footprint or touches structure, plumbing or exits, you will almost certainly need a building permit, and the permit needs drawings. We prepare those renovation drawings for houses in both the City of North Vancouver and the District of North Vancouver: measured as-built plans of what is there now, the proposed changes, and the details the plan checker needs to approve the work. The first job is working out which municipality you are in, because the two run separate permit offices with their own bylaws.
City or District? Sort that out before anything else
Homeowners often say “North Van” without knowing which one they live in. The City of North Vancouver is the compact, mostly urban strip around Lonsdale: Lower Lonsdale, Central Lonsdale, Moodyville and the streets climbing up toward Upper Lonsdale. The District of North Vancouver wraps around it, with Lynn Valley, Edgemont, Deep Cove, Blueridge, Delbrook, Capilano and the slopes reaching up to the mountains. Your property tax notice tells you which one you pay.
It matters because each has its own zoning bylaw, its own way of handling small-scale multi-unit housing under the Province’s Bill 44, its own tree rules and its own permit intake. We check the current requirements for your address at the start rather than assuming.
Renovations we draw on the North Shore
- Basement suites. Legalizing an existing suite or building a new one in a 1960s or 1970s split-level or a basement-entry house. Ceiling height, fire separation, egress windows, and a separate entrance on a sloped lot are the usual design questions.
- Opening up the main floor. Taking out the wall between a closed kitchen and dining room, which usually means a new beam, posts and point loads carried down to the foundation.
- Additions and upper floors. Adding a bedroom over a garage, filling in a carport, or raising part of the roof. These need a zoning check on floor area, height and setbacks before design starts.
- Decks and covered outdoor rooms. On a hillside, a deck can sit well above grade, which brings in guard heights, structure and sometimes setbacks that a flat-lot deck never triggers.
- Whole-house renovations. When the scope gets large, it is worth comparing against a rebuild. Our article on when renovating an older home costs more than starting over walks through that decision.
What makes North Vancouver renovations different
The houses themselves set the agenda. A lot of North Shore housing stock dates from the post-war decades and was built into hillsides, so renovation drawings here deal with things you rarely see on a flat east-side Vancouver lot.
- Grade changes around the house. On a sloped Lynn Valley or Upper Lonsdale lot, one side of the basement can be fully below ground while the other walks out. That changes how storeys and floor area are counted, and where a suite entrance can go.
- Creeks, ravines and hazard areas. Many District properties back onto creeks or steep ravines. If yours sits in a development permit area for streamside protection or natural hazards, an addition may need a development permit and a qualified professional’s report before the building permit.
- Big trees. Both municipalities regulate tree removal. A cedar near a planned addition can mean an arborist report and a tree protection zone on the site plan, which can move the addition before you have chosen a window.
- What is hiding in the walls. Older houses can contain asbestos in drywall compound, stucco, flooring or ducting. WorkSafeBC rules generally require a hazardous materials survey before work disturbs those materials, so plan for it early.
- Undocumented past work. It is common to find a basement finished decades ago with no permit on file. The drawings then have to show existing conditions honestly, and the plan checker may ask for parts of that older work to be brought up to code.
Not sure whether your project needs a permit at all? Tap to call 778-488-8553 and describe the scope. We will tell you straight.
How we take a North Vancouver renovation to permit
- Scope call. You tell us what you want to change and why. We confirm City or District, and flag whether the work is likely to need a permit, a development permit, or neither.
- Records and zoning check. We look at the zoning for your lot and ask you to request any past permit drawings on file for the house. These often explain why a wall is where it is.
- Site measure. We measure the existing house: rooms, ceiling heights, windows, stairs, and the structure we can see. On a sloped lot we note grades at each side, because they drive the basement and suite rules.
- Existing-condition drawings. We draw the house as it stands. This is where many renovation applications run into trouble, and it is what the plan checker compares everything against.
- Proposed design. We lay out the changes with you, adjusting until the plan works for your family and fits the bylaw and the BC Building Code.
- Consultant coordination. Depending on scope, a structural engineer, arborist, geotechnical engineer or energy advisor may be needed. We tell you which ones and coordinate their information into the set.
- Permit set and submission. Plans, sections, elevations where needed, and code details, assembled to the municipality’s current submission requirements.
- Plan-review comments. When the reviewer sends questions or correction requests, we revise the drawings and respond so the file keeps moving.
Review times depend on the scope, the municipality’s workload and how complete the submission is, so we do not promise a date. A complete, clearly drawn set is the part you control. If you want to see what a typical package contains, our page on house plans and permit drawings lays it out, and our Vancouver renovation permit drawings page covers the same service across the bridge. Further east, we also design renovations and additions for older New Westminster houses, including heritage-listed ones.
Common mistakes we see on North Shore renovations
- Starting demolition “just to see.” Opening walls before a permit can create stop-work problems and makes the existing-condition drawings harder to verify.
- Assuming the suite rules are the same as next door’s. A friend’s suite in the City does not tell you much about a house in the District, and the rules for both have been changing.
- Removing a wall without checking what it carries. In split-level houses, a wall that looks like a partition often supports the floor above. An engineer should confirm before anyone designs around its removal.
- Ignoring the tree until the end. A protected tree found late can force a redesign of an addition that was already drawn.
If you are weighing a new house instead, our sister team has a guide to designing homes in North Vancouver that covers the new-build side.
North Vancouver renovation permit FAQ
Do I need a permit to renovate my kitchen in North Vancouver?
Replacing cabinets, counters and finishes usually does not. Moving or removing walls, changing structure, adding plumbing fixtures or altering windows generally does. The exact line depends on your municipality’s current rules, which we confirm for your scope.
Can you help legalize a basement suite that was built without a permit?
Yes. We measure and draw the suite as it exists, then show what has to change to meet the code: commonly ceiling height, fire separations, smoke alarms, ventilation and egress windows. Some existing suites can be brought into compliance easily; others need more work. You will know which before you commit to construction.
Will I need a structural engineer?
For beam changes, removed bearing walls, additions, upper floors and most raised decks, yes. For an interior layout change that does not touch structure, often not. We tell you at the scope stage.
I don’t have old drawings of my house. Is that a problem?
No. Many older North Shore houses have little or nothing on file. We measure on site and produce the existing-condition drawings ourselves.
Does the Energy Step Code apply to renovations?
The Step Code is aimed mainly at new construction, but large renovations and additions can carry energy requirements of their own. What applies depends on the size of the work and the municipality’s current policy, so we check it for your project.
Get your North Vancouver renovation drawings started
Send us your address, a few photos and a short description of what you want to change, or call to talk it through.
We reply within one business day.