B.C. industry hopes to create a model for modular housing across Canada

October 3, 2025

B.C. industry hopes to create a model for modular housing across Canada

A rendering of a standardized multiplex design from Modular BC, an industry group working to create standardized, permit-ready and scalable four- and six-plex modular designs. Modular BC

A speedy method of construction that is popular in Europe is in the national spotlight, and B.C. is playing a key role.

Modular construction, which involves factory-built structures that are brought to a site and stacked up into various forms of housing, is a major topic of discussion and investment, with Prime Minister Mark Carney announcing $13-billion allocated for modular housing across Canada.

Modular BC, a group representing the province’s factory-built modular home industry, is working on standardized plans to deliver modular multiplex housing as a playbook for use across Canada, in an effort to speed up the delivery of housing and possibly bring costs down. The association said it will soon finalize a deal with the National Research Council to conduct a study that will look at increasing modular construction’s share of the province’s home building industry from 4.5 per cent to 25 per cent over five years. The work will involve an economic study and a factory-built modular comparison study. Modular BC director Paul Binotto said it aims to create standardized, permit-ready and scalable four- and six-plex modular designs.

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Mr. Binotto said that the province’s Bill 44, which requires local governments to allow small-scale multi-unit housing, paves the way for a national standardized modular multiplex program.

“It’s a playbook developed for multiplexes, and a modular standardized program, but also a playbook developed in British Columbia for the rest of Canada,” he said.

“We’ve created a perfect storm here for us to have the ability to bring in standardization, because now, we’re not doing it region by region or city by city; this is an overall provincial scope, so it helps manufacturing,” he said. “We help contractors go from building one, two, three houses a year, to building 10 or 12 houses a year.”