CA-4 zone in Victoria: Central Area Commercial Office District

Victoria, British ColumbiaDraft, not yet reviewedBylaw read 2026-11-07

In short

Main uses: Bakeries (production and retail sale, up to 650 m²), Chartered banks, Offices for business, charitable, religious, political or other purposes, Professional offices and surgeries, Residences (second and higher storeys only; first storey must be non-residential), and 10 more.

Zone rules

Main uses	Bakeries (production and retail sale, up to 650 m²) Chartered banks Offices for business, charitable, religious, political or other purposes Professional offices and surgeries Residences (second and higher storeys only; first storey must be non-residential) Transient accommodation and accessory uses Rental businesses Restaurants Retail sales (other than gasoline and automotive fuels) Theatres, auditoriums, gymnasiums and other places of recreation or worship Drycleaning or clothes pressing (up to 279 m²) Clubs Hospitals, private hospitals, nursing homes, intermediate care facilities and community care facilities High tech Call centre
Maximum density	Floor space ratio not more than 3 to 1
Maximum height	10 m at lot lines bordering a street; the part above 10 m is set back 1 cm for each 5 cm of extra height; no building over 43 m
Interior side setback	Side yard not less than 4.5 m wide for buildings higher than 15 m
Other rules	Uses do not authorize a service station business No off-street parking required except 50% of transient accommodation units and 70% of residential dwelling units No off-street loading facilities required

Source: Zoning Regulation Bylaw No. 80-159 (consolidated on October 17, 2019 up to Bylaw No. 19-074; zone Parts amended to Bylaw 24-060, August 2024) and Zoning Bylaw 2018 (consolidated on June 9, 2022 up to Bylaw No. 22-048), s. 6.8 (read 2026-11-07)

Rules in the bylaw's general sections (parking, fences, suites, home businesses) also apply, and a lot can have site-specific rules. Victoria has two zoning bylaws in force. Zoning Bylaw 2018 (zones GRD-1, LVD-1, CVD-1, TCD-1, CBD-1, CBD-2, MRD-1, OTD-1, IAI-1, MI-1, LI-1, HI-1; https://www.victoria.ca/media/file/zoning-bylaw-2018) applies to the areas on its Map 1: the Downtown Core Area and most commercial and low-density residential properties in town centres, urban villages and residential fabric. The Zoning Regulation Bylaw No. 80-159 (one PDF per zone) still governs the rest, including most industrial, medium and high density residential outside downtown, comprehensive development districts and some commercial properties. The City says its website bylaws are office consolidations provided for convenience; refer to the bylaws and amendments at City Hall. In text.txt every file starts at a '[source <url>]' line; the first file is the Introduction & General Regulations of Bylaw 80-159 and the Zoning Bylaw 2018 is appended at the end. Zones whose PDF has no text layer (image-only; no OCR was run) have no lines or pdf_page, only source_url; 179 codes, listed in places/victoria/no-text-layer.txt. For zones with text, pdf_page is the page inside that zone's own PDF (always the first page). Zone pages are taken from the bylaw text by a research agent and have not yet been reviewed by a person: confirm with the bylaw before you rely on them. How answers are checked.

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