Exterior Screens, Patio Covers & Awnings for Langley City and Township

The City's single family addition and alteration guide puts construct, cover or enclose a porch or sundeck on the list of work a building permit is required for, alongside adding to a building and converting a carport. Its residential application form then asks for Sundeck Area and Sundeck with Roof Area as two separate figures. Few municipalities are that direct about roofing over an existing outdoor space. Confirm your own structure with the City of Langley Building Division before anything is ordered.

The City's accessory building guide states that detached buildings under 10 square metres, which it gives as 107.64 square feet, do not require a building permit, however must comply with the setback requirements set out in the City of Langley Zoning Bylaw for accessory buildings. The same guide restates that no erection, alteration, enlargement, repair, removal or demolition of any building or structure may be commenced without a permit being obtained first. Staying under the line removes the permit, not the siting rules. The guide is dated 12 April 2022, so treat the zoning figures inside it as superseded by Bylaw 3300 and confirm the current position with the City.

The City's Integrated Rainwater Management guides set an exemption ceiling tied to roof area on single family lots. For an addition the test is an additional roof area of 25 square metres or less. For an accessory building it is total roof area under 25 square metres. Above that, the City publishes a requirement for an Integrated Rainwater Management plan designed by a professional geotechnical engineer with a soils report, and a restrictive covenant registered against the property at the Land Title Office. On unserviced lots in South Langley, roughly south of Grade Crescent and 50 Ave between 196 Street and 210 Street, the same threshold brings in an infiltration gallery set at least 5 m from the nearest building foundation and at least 1 m from a property line. A solid roofed patio cover passes 25 square metres easily, so this is worth raising with the City early.

The definition in Bylaw 3300 turns on one word: lot coverage means the percentage of the area of a lot that is covered by buildings and enclosed structures. That wording is not the same as the Township's, which counts all buildings and structures and their projections. Anyone comparing a City project with a Township project should read both definitions rather than assume they work alike, and which side of that line a particular open sided cover falls on is a determination for City staff.

In the R1 Suburban Residential zone the bylaw states that the maximum total floor area of accessory buildings on a lot is 60 square metres. The same schedule sets maximum height for accessory buildings and structures at 4.6 m, maximum lot coverage at 36 percent, and minimum accessory setbacks of 6.0 m front, 1.5 m rear, 1.5 m interior side and 3.0 m exterior side. It also requires an accessory building in R1 to sit at least as far from the front lot line as the principal building and at least 1.0 m from it. Check which zone your property is in before applying any of these.

The Other Regulations block of the R1 schedule states that roof top patios are prohibited. That closes off the roof deck with a shade structure over it which gets proposed on constrained urban lots elsewhere. It sits in the R1 schedule specifically and is the only occurrence in the bylaw, so it is not a statement about every zone in the City.

The Projections Into Yards section names sun shades among the features allowed to project up to 1.0 m into a required front, side or rear yard in all single family and multiple residential zones, alongside eaves and gutters, cornices, sills, bay windows, chimneys and steps. Separately, the All Zones line permits steps, arbors and trellises, ornaments, flag poles and similar landscaping features, and uncovered patios or terraces. Covered patios are not on that All Zones list. If a structure has to sit inside a setback, this wording is where the conversation with the City starts.

For all commercial zones the bylaw allows marquees and canopies to project provided they come no closer than 1.0 m to the vertical projection of the curb line, and requires the minimum height of the underside of a canopy to be 2.5 m. That pair governs a fixed awning or canopy over a City frontage or a sidewalk facing patio. It is a zoning rule. A building permit, and any use of City property, are separate questions to put to the City.

The City's Agent Authorization form carries a second page for strata title properties on which a member of the strata council confirms that consent of a strata corporation is required for work that will involve or affect common property and limited common property, including work altering limited common property adjacent to a named unit. A townhouse patio or terrace is very often limited common property, so the City's paperwork asks for the strata council before it asks for much else. Read your own strata bylaws alongside it.

Section 5.1 of the Langley Building Bylaw is one sentence: a permit is required for all Construction. The bylaw defines Construction to include erect, repair, alter, add and install, and defines Structure to include anything fixed to, supported by or sunk into land or attached to a building, while specifically excluding paving, fences and landscaping. The Township's residential construction guide repeats that no deposit of fill, excavation, erection, alteration, enlargement, repair, removal or demolition of any building or structure may be commenced without first obtaining a permit. We found no published area or height threshold in the Township below which an accessory roofed structure is exempt. Confirm your specific structure with the Permits, Licences and Inspections Division rather than assuming the City's 10 square metre line applies out here.

Section 104.4 1) of Zoning Bylaw 2500 names sunlight control projections and canopies among the features that may reduce a required minimum distance to an abutting lot line, alongside chimneys, gutters, sills, steps, eaves, cantilevered balconies, open porches and ornamental features, and caps that reduction at 0.6 m, applying only to the projecting feature. The City allows 1.0 m for the equivalent. On a lot where the building already sits close to the line, a deep fixed awning or a wide projection retractable can meet this before it meets anything structural.

Section 102 defines lot coverage as the total horizontal area covered by all buildings and structures or projections thereof on a lot, expressed as a percentage of the lot area. Some zone schedules carve specific items out. Section 404.4 in the R-CL(A) compact lot zone excludes covered verandahs, porches, patios and entranceways located in the front and flanking yards, along with accessory buildings under 9.3 square metres. The R-1A and R-1B schedules carry no such carve out and cap coverage at 35 percent, or 45 percent with infill housing. Read your own zone schedule alongside the definition.

The Township counts over 1,700 kilometres of watercourses. Its brochure states that Schedule 3 of the Official Community Plan establishes Streamside Protection and Enhancement Development Permit Areas and guidelines applicable to watercourses not in the Agricultural Land Reserve. Non disturbance setbacks are set by the watercourse's classification on the Township's watercourse classification mapping, are measured from top of bank, and reach 30 m for a Class A natural watercourse. The brochure also states that where a project has not been subject to the development approval process, streamside requirements may be applied at the time of a building permit application. It lists what the requirements do not apply to, starting with Agricultural Land Reserve lands and lands outside a designated area, and notes that for development within the ALR, senior government streamside requirements apply instead. This affects specific properties rather than the Township generally, and the brochure is dated April 2017.

The Township's development permits page states that in a development permit area, before a building permit may be obtained, a development permit must first be issued, and names four kinds of area: form and character, small-scale multi-unit housing, streamside protection and enhancement, and heritage alteration permit. Its development permit brochure adds that inside such an area a permit must be obtained not only for the construction of new buildings and structures but also for most additions or alterations to existing ones. In a heritage conservation area, of which the Township states there are currently two, in Fort Langley and Murrayville, a Heritage Alteration Permit is required in lieu of a development permit and the process for issuing it is the same. We found no wildfire interface, hillside or steep slope development permit area published by the Township.

The Township's engineering forms page describes its annual Highway Use Permit as the way to apply to have private infrastructure overhang municipal property, such as awning signs, sandwich boards, patio furniture and blade signage. Applicants must submit evidence of applicable commercial general liability insurance for $3,000,000 minimum, and all policies must contain a cross liability clause with the Township of Langley named as an additional insured. Where a canopy reaches past the property line on a village or commercial frontage, that is an approval separate from the building permit.

The Township publishes that approximately 75 percent of its land is within the Agricultural Land Reserve, and that protecting this land from non-farm uses and subdivision is a key goal of both the Agricultural Land Commission and the Township. Applications under the Agricultural Land Commission Act go through the Commission's own portal and are reviewed by Township staff and Council before the Commission decides. Anything on ALR land that is not a farm use is a provincial question as well as a municipal one, so ask both the Township and the Commission before design work starts.