Executive Summary

From late 2025 into early 2026, the consulting team, led by Small Housing with expert subconsultants Alpine Civil Engineering Consultants Ltd. and Gruner Consulting Inc., evaluated the City of Kelowna’s administrative and regulatory frameworks against the operational realities of off-site manufacturing.  While Small Housing led the project management, regulatory review, and the development of data-driven deliverables, Gruner provided deep industry and policy insights. Alpine focused primarily on the mechanics of local government execution, performing an in-depth audit across the City’s regulatory ecosystem. This review spanned the Official Community Plan (OCP), Zoning, Building, Plumbing and Servicing bylaws, as well as internal permitting processes, to identify friction points and develop concrete, actionable options to accommodate prefabricated housing.

The Challenge

The City of Kelowna is facing an unprecedented housing supply shortfall, requiring approximately 2,773 new homes annually over the next five years to meet provincial targets. Traditional “stick-built” construction faces compounding bottlenecks, including severe skilled trades shortages and unpredictable timelines. While prefabricated and modular construction methods (Part 3 panelized and Part 9 volumetric) offer a fast, high-quality, and community-friendly alternative, local municipal bylaws and permitting pathways haven’t historically kept pace with factory-built frameworks like the CSA A277 standard.

Our Role & Service Provided:

Supported by BC Housing’s Digitally Accelerated Standardized Housing (DASH) program, this multi-disciplinary project was executed by a collaborative team of industry experts:

• Small Housing (Project Lead): Provided overall project management, planning, and regulatory review, while coordinating the development of all project materials and final deliverables.
• Alpine Civil Engineering Consultants Ltd. (Subconsultant): Provided extensive municipal bylaw reviews including Zoning, OCP, Building, and Plumbing bylaws, and delivered targeted guidance on permitting processes and actionable options to accommodate prefabricated housing.
• Gruner Consulting Inc. (Subconsultant): Contributed vast industry experience in delivering workforce housing and modular homes at all scales across varied jurisdictions, providing key policy input based on recent government initiatives.

Our collaborative consulting team provided:

• A Deep-Dive Regulatory Audit: Evaluating Kelowna’s regulations including Zoning, Building, and Servicing Bylaws to decouple permanent modern modular systems from historical “mobile home” stigmas and constraints.
• Permitting & Infrastructure Alignment: Mapping out how to seamlessly integrate factory quality control systems into local building permits, municipal inspections, and fire flow/utility servicing constraints.
• Direct Industry Engagement: Conducting targeted outreach with regional developers, builders, and volumetric modular manufacturers to identify real-world bottlenecks at the designer-manufacturer interface.
• Jurisdictional Benchmarking: Reviewing frameworks from progressive municipalities (e.g., North Vancouver, Surrey) to analyze their comparable definitions, checklists, and successful approaches.

The Result

The Alpine Engineering Governance team, led by Project Manager Nicole Kelly and in partnership with Small Housing, combined efforts and developed a highly actionable roadmap delivered to the City of Kelowna in May 2026.

The final report provides a clear blueprint for updating bylaws, implementing abbreviated inspection protocols that defer to CSA A277 certification, and expanding the City’s Fast-Track permitting catalog to include prefabricated designs. This project positions Kelowna to become a premier, “prefab-ready” hub in the Okanagan.