We opened 2026 with a double Open House, showcasing a duo of family-led housing on either side of N Boundary Rd, one in Vancouver and one in Burnaby.

Without ever crossing paths, two families found themselves making remarkably similar choices toward the same goals.

Both were using the family lot to solve a generational question: how can we keep family close, preserve long-term flexibility on the existing lot, and make a smart decision for how to take control over life transitions as a family.

A Tale of Two Cities is emblematic of a quiet shift in housing across Metro Vancouver, where, on the same old family lots, infill housing is creating opportunities for generations to live closer, longer, and better together.

This family’s laneway home in Vancouver is currently under construction behind a house they have owned for decades.

The lot is large—9,103 sq ft, measuring 74 x 121—and the laneway home is modest by comparison: 1,053 sq ft, one level, with 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, and a den.

By no means a square footage maximizer, it was designed as a “just enough” downsizer, comfortably sized and thoughtfully planned.

“We realized that the main house was just too big for us.” the parents remarked. “We weren't using the upstairs at all. We basically were in the kitchen. The dining room was a walkthrough until special occasions—birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving. When we measured it out, we used about 660 sqft on a daily basis. This laneway home we’re building is 1,053 sqft.”

Feeling “overhoused” had been on the back of their minds. But the urgency wasn’t just about downsizing.

After their youngest daughter and her partner had a child, her two-bedroom condo was becoming too tight, and moving farther out—to Maple Ridge, perhaps even Abbotsford—would have meant that seeing the grandchild would become something to plan for, rather than a natural part of life.

With the other daughter already living in the basement suite of the main house, a different idea started to bubble: instead of making separate housing decisions, what if the lot could accommodate everyone?

The daughters did the research. They compared alternatives and eventually pitched the idea of a laneway house to their parents by way of a keynote presentation. And after touring a few Smallworks Open Houses, the family reached a clear consensus.

The plan was elegant in its logic: the parents downsize into the new laneway home, while the daughters and their households make fuller use of the main house and basement suite.

Just the same lot reorganized around the next chapter of family life.

And while everyone eventually got on board, it did not happen overnight.

“We’ve been working through this for a number of years,” one of the daughters shared. “It wasn’t an immediate ‘let’s put the whole family together’ decision. We’ve had conversations over parking, entrances, daily rhythms, and how multiple households might move around the property together. So all of that has been worked out over a bit of a longer timeline.“

Smallworks had to pass the test too.

“Because we were building for family, we were looking for something of quite a high spec and a high quality,” she continued. “With the number of builds Smallworks do for people who are moving into them themselves, it proved to be one of the big values for us. We weren't looking for something quick or cheap to rent out. It was a really different value system we were working on.”

“I’d also noticed Smallworks long before that,” she added. “I used to walk to work at 6:30 or 7 in the freezing mornings, and they were one of the only companies that had their sidewalks done. And so it was just a nice reprieve to just know I wasn't gonna fall. So that made us go, let's look at Smallworks and go from there.”

From that first family conversation to today, their corner lot is slowly taking shape as a place where two generations grow into three, living side by side, sharing life on their own terms.

Just across the municipal line to the east, another family has just completed one of Burnaby’s first permitted laneway homes. An early adopter move, not by chance, but the result of years spent weighing the opportunity together.

This lot is smaller—6,096 sq ft, measuring 50 x 121—but the laneway home is larger: 1,211 sq ft, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, over two levels.

Called the Rear Principal House, it was built for the daughter and her fiancé, who had returned to Vancouver looking for a more permanent housing solution after finding the condo market too small and not particularly livable. For them, the laneway house wasn’t a compromise. It was a forever home.

“It was just the right idea. Honestly, my partner and I were looking at places and a lot of the condos were just so small and not the most livable,” the daughter shared. “So I'm so happy with this. What Smallworks designed really incorporated everything that we asked for. We’re super excited to move in here.”

Swapping houses is part of the plan. In the short term, the younger couple moves into the new home. Over time, the parents will downsize into it.

The home includes a bedroom on the main floor, a zero-threshold shower, and an accessible entry sequence, functionally set up for the day the parents make the move. A 20-foot-high open living area anchors the space, looking out onto a shared yard where life between the two homes naturally overlaps.

And perhaps the biggest winner? The family dog, now making its rounds between both homes.

However, one more home on the lot did come with a tradeoff: saying goodbye to Dad’s beloved garage.

“As a family we decided we have lots of land and the only thing we had to give up was my garage,” Dad noted. “For a condo price you’re getting a house, ground level, yard space. So it was a good deal.”

The family lot, often the family’s biggest asset, is finding its way into dinner table conversations.

Parents of millennials and Gen Z are beginning to look at how the equity in their existing—often mortgage free—homes can support the family. As they age, they’re also thinking about the kind of support they may need in return. At the same time, adult children are trying to stay in the neighbourhoods they grew up in as they begin families of their own.

Generations are coming together and deciding to live in close proximity—to support one another and journey through this chapter of life together.

Across Metro Vancouver, single-family lots are evolving not only because families do, but also because the bylaws governing what they can become are changing to meet a generational need.

Housing is beginning to be understood less as a commodity measured only in price per square foot, and more as a framework for proximity, support, equity building, legacy planning, and long-term stability.

Laneway homes help families avoid the forced compromises they often face: aging parents uprooted from longtime neighbourhoods into institutional care, adult children priced out of central neighbourhoods, and family wealth locked into a property but not organized to support the people tied to it.

The lot, as it turns out, can become the platform for a different kind of housing decision, allowing families to think in 15- to 30-year terms, rather than reacting to the next immediate housing crunch.

A Tale of Two Cities tells the serendipitous story of two families—separately and concurrently—building with Smallworks. But it’s not a rare one. There’s likely a family near you building one more home on their lot as you read this.

Could there be a deeper common thread between these families and yours?