2026 Q3 Edmonton building permit report

Edmonton permitted 27% fewer homes in the first nine months of 2026 than in the same period of record-setting 2025. Most of that drop is large apartments. Meanwhile, rowhomes in the RS Zone kept growing, and fiveplex to eightplex homes are now the largest category of homes permitted in the city. It’s the same story as at mid-year: fewer homes overall, but more small-scale infill than ever.

That matters right now. This post comes out as Danielle Smith has indicated interest in Edmonton’s zoning bylaw after lobbying from a lobbying organization led by people associated with failed municipal council candidates. Let’s be clear: Edmonton’s housing supply now relies on small-scale infill as a key piece. A four-unit cap on the RS Zone would have cost between 10% and 22% of all homes permitted in Edmonton this year. Any restriction on small-scale infill would significantly reduce the number of homes built, and therefore increase rents and home prices.

With this post, I am also announcing the launch of a new infill dashboard. It maps every new backyard house, duplex to fourplex and fiveplex to eightplex permit in RS-zoned neighbourhoods since January 2024, with a table view of every neighbourhood that you can search, sort and download. I will refresh it every quarter alongside this report.

New this quarter, I zoomed out to the cumulative number of homes permitted since 2009, compared RS Zone redevelopment against the full stock of RS-zoned properties, and estimated how many homes a lower unit cap in the RS Zone would cost.

A rowhouse in Hazeldean — Figure 1: A rowhouse I biked by in Hazeldean

Key facts

Edmonton permitted 9,779 homes in Q1–Q3 2026, 27% fewer than the 13,447 in Q1–Q3 2025. Most of the drop is large apartments, which fell from 4,365 to 1,852 homes after a record in 2025. Annualized, 2026 is on track for roughly 12,713 homes, similar to 2014 and 2022.
A lower unit cap would be costly. A four-unit cap would have cost between 10% and 22% of homes permitted in Q1–Q3 2026, and a two-unit cap up to 26%. See What a lower cap would cost for more details.
Fiveplex to eightplex rowhomes edged past last year’s record and are now the largest category of homes permitted in Edmonton. In the RS Zone, they added 2,107 homes in Q1–Q3 2026, up 17% from 1,798, even as the city overall slowed. That’s 22% of all homes permitted this year.
Homes permitted in mature neighbourhoods were 18% lower than Q1–Q3 2025 (4,895 → 4,025), entirely because of a decrease in large apartments. Fiveplex to eightplex homes in mature neighbourhoods hit a new high.
Since the RS Zone took effect in January 2024, Edmonton has permitted 41,104 homes, 32% of them in mature neighbourhoods. Fiveplex to eightplex infill in mature neighbourhoods has added 5,187 of those homes (13%) across 693 permits, while redeveloping just 0.88% of RS-zoned properties there.
25% of homes were permitted within 800m of an existing or under-construction LRT stop in Q1–Q3 2026, compared to 30% in 2025 (full year), a dip that mostly reflects the apartment slowdown. Counting frequent bus stops within 400m, it’s 41%.

Data and methods

Edmonton’s general building permit data tracks building permits since 2009, with columns for building type, work type, location, units added, and more. Like the mid-year post, this post fetches permit data directly from Edmonton’s Open Data API, filtered to Jan–Sep to exclude incomplete Q4 data.

Edmonton’s property assessment data provides one row per property with zoning and neighbourhood information, used to calculate how many RS-zoned properties exist per neighbourhood.

For background on the RS Zone and ZBR, see the two-year review post.

Similar to my Q1 and mid-year posts, to annualize the 2026 Jan–Sep numbers to the full year, I estimate an annualization multiplier from historical data. For each year from 2009 to 2025, I calculate the ratio of full-year units to Jan–Sep units, and use the median as the multiplier.

Figure 2: Historical ratio of full-year to Jan–Sep residential building permit units

The median Jan–Sep multiplier is 1.3×, as shown in Figure 2, meaning a full year typically produces 1.3 times the homes permitted in Jan–Sep alone. All 2026 projections in this post use this multiplier.

Year-over-year Q1–Q3 comparison

The most direct way to compare 2026 to prior years is to look at the same nine months across all years, stripping out seasonality entirely. Figure 3 shows units added in Q1–Q3 for each year since 2009, broken down by project type. Homes permitted are down 27.3% from last year, and once again, it’s mostly about apartments. The 9+ Apartment category fell from its 2025 record of 4,365 homes to 1,852, which accounts for 69% of the overall drop. Apartment permits are lumpy: a handful of large projects can swing the total by thousands. Single detached and duplex to fourplex homes are also down. The one major category that’s up is the fiveplex to eightplex rowhome, which edged past last year’s record and overtook single detached homes.

Figure 4 shows the same Q1–Q3 data as raw permit counts rather than units, showing how many separate projects are behind each category. Single detached homes still dominate the permit count, since each permit is just one home. Fiveplex to eightplex permits came in at 406, compared to last year’s record of 396, while duplex to fourplex permits fell back towards pre-2024 levels.

Looking at the number of homes by neighbourhood type, Figure 5 shows that homes permitted in mature neighbourhoods are down 17.8% from last year. But the apartment category alone fell by more than that total: fiveplex to eightplex homes in mature neighbourhoods are up again, to another record. Between the mature core and the Henday, apartments fell off a cliff after a big 2025. Outside the Henday, the 21.1% decline is spread across single detached and duplex to fourplex homes.

Projecting 2026 from Q1–Q3 data

With three quarters of the year under our belt, the projection for the full year is on firmer ground than it was at mid-year. Figure 6 shows the full-year units added by project type, with 2026 projected from Q1–Q3 using the 1.3× adjustment.

The total projection of roughly 12,713 homes is down from the 13,726 I projected at mid-year. It lands well below 2025’s record and 2024, roughly in line with 2014 and 2022. That’s still a solid year by Edmonton’s historical standards, just not another record. Within that total, fiveplex to eightplex homes are projected to edge out 2025’s record and, for the first time, finish a full year as the single largest category of homes permitted in the city.

Figure 7 breaks the same projection down by neighbourhood type. The fiveplex to eightplex category in mature neighbourhoods is projected to contribute about 2,900 homes this year, making it the single largest source of new homes of any project type in any part of the city, ahead of even the 2,400 single detached homes projected outside the Henday. I have seen firsthand on social media videos and ads from landlords of new rowhomes lowering rents and offering incentives to find tenants, but nine months in, it seems like we have not yet hit the rent floor where building permits slow down. We are still playing catch-up on years of suppressed demand to live centrally.

The slowdown shows up mostly outside the mature core. Between the mature core and the Henday, the drop in apartments leaves the projection at a fraction of recent years. Outside the Henday, supply is down from last year but on track to remain relatively strong.

Cumulative homes since the RS Zone took effect

What has the RS Zone changed over the long run? Figure 8 zooms all the way out, tracking the running total of homes permitted by neighbourhood type since 2009, with the date the RS Zone took effect marked.

Figure 8: Cumulative homes permitted by neighbourhood type since 2009

For 15 years, the mature neighbourhood line climbed at a steady, modest pace. After January 2024, it bends sharply upward. Since January 2024, mature neighbourhoods have permitted an average of 397 homes a month, 2.7 times their 2009–2023 average of 147. Figure 9 zooms in on the period since January 2024, tracking the running total of homes permitted each month, split by neighbourhood type.

Figure 9: Cumulative homes permitted by neighbourhood type since the RS Zone took effect (Jan 2024)

Outside the Henday still adds the most homes in raw terms. But mature neighbourhoods durably overtook the areas between the mature core and the Henday back in March 2025, and the gap has only widened since. Since January 2024, Edmonton has permitted 41,104 homes, and 32% of them landed in mature neighbourhoods.

Top neighbourhoods for RS infill

Where is the infill actually happening? And how does the level of activity compare to the total number of properties in each neighbourhood?

Table 1 shows the Q1–Q3 2026 5–8 unit RS Zone permit activity by neighbourhood type, compared to the total number of RS-zoned properties. In mature neighbourhoods, about a third of one percent of RS properties got a 5–8 unit permit in the first nine months of the year. Between the mature core and the Henday, it’s a rounding error. Once again: incremental growth.

Table 1: RS Zone 5–8 unit permits vs total properties by neighbourhood type, Q1–Q3 2026

Neighbourhood type	Q1–Q3 2026			RS-zoned properties	Projected 2026 (Jan–Sep ×1.3)
RS Zone intensity by neighbourhood type
Q1–Q3 2026, and projected 2026
Neighbourhood type	Permits	Homes added	% redeveloped	RS-zoned properties	Permits	Homes added	% redeveloped
Mature	271	2,020	0.34%	78,551	352	2,626	0.45%
Between mature and Henday	13	87	0.02%	64,279	17	113	0.03%
Jacob Dawang, City of Edmonton Open Data

Table 2 adds up every 5–8 unit RS permit since the RS Zone took effect. Nearly three years in, fiveplex to eightplex projects have added 5,187 homes in mature neighbourhoods while redeveloping just 0.88% of the RS-zoned properties there.

Table 2: Cumulative RS Zone 5–8 unit permits vs total properties by neighbourhood type, Jan 2024 – Q3 2026

Neighbourhood type	Permits	RS-zoned properties	% redeveloped	Homes added
Cumulative RS Zone intensity by neighbourhood type
2024 + 2025 + Q1–Q3 2026 building permits
Mature	693	78,551	0.88%	5,187
Between mature and Henday	20	64,279	0.03%	136
Jacob Dawang, City of Edmonton Open Data

Figure 10 widens the lens to every RS Zone project that adds homes, including backyard houses and duplex to fourplex projects, against the full stock of RS-zoned properties citywide. Even counting all of them, only 1.2% of RS properties have been redeveloped into more than a single detached home since January 2024. The bars are almost entirely “Not redeveloped.” Neighbourhoods are changing block by block, not overnight.

Figure 10: Cumulative RS Zone redevelopment by project type against the full RS-zoned property stock, 2024 – Q3 2026 (single detached rebuilds counted as not redeveloped)

Table 3 shows the top neighbourhoods by Q1–Q3 2026 5–8 unit RS permit volume. These are the neighbourhoods where ZBR’s effects are most visible right now. King Edward Park, along the Valley Line East, takes the top spot, continuing the pickup along the already-completed Valley Line East that I noted at mid-year. Glenwood, High Park and West Jasper Place in the west end, along the Valley Line West, and Prince Charles and Inglewood continue to be popular. All six had fewer residents in 2021 than in 1971, and High Park has lost over 40% of its population. Infill here is repopulating the neighbourhoods, but it’s still a long way from replacing the population that left decades ago.

Table 3: Top neighbourhoods by Q1–Q3 2026 5–8 unit RS permits

Neighbourhood	Permits	RS properties	% redeveloped	Homes added	Population 2021	Population 1971	Pop. change
Top neighbourhoods by Q1–Q3 2026 5–8 unit RS permits
Q1–Q3 2026 building permits
King Edward Park	14	1,456	1.0%	99	4,820	6,310	−23.6%
Glenwood	12	947	1.3%	93	4,960	5,650	−12.2%
High Park	11	615	1.8%	88	1,480	2,545	−41.8%
Inglewood	11	1,077	1.0%	82	6,945	7,550	−8.0%
Prince Charles	10	519	1.9%	76	1,425	2,080	−31.5%
West Jasper Place	10	567	1.8%	80	2,885	2,925	−1.4%
Jacob Dawang, City of Edmonton Open Data

As usual, Table 4 tracks neighbourhoods that have been prominent in RS Zone debates. Crestwood is now up to 0.6% of properties redeveloped this year, double where it was at mid-year!

Table 4: Selected neighbourhood 5–8 unit RS profiles, Q1–Q3 2026

Neighbourhood	Permits	RS properties	% redeveloped	Homes added	Population 2021	Population 1971	Pop. change
Selected neighbourhood 5–8 unit RS profiles
Q1–Q3 2026 building permits
Belgravia	3	702	0.4%	23	2,220	2,940	−24.5%
Britannia Youngstown	9	890	1.0%	71	4,350	4,590	−5.2%
Crestwood	5	859	0.6%	33	2,415	3,445	−29.9%
Glenwood	12	947	1.3%	93	4,960	5,650	−12.2%
Grovenor	3	883	0.3%	22	2,585	3,100	−16.6%
Mckernan	5	881	0.6%	35	2,580	2,840	−9.2%
Parkview	4	1,384	0.3%	27	3,375	5,735	−41.2%
Westmount	4	1,109	0.4%	30	6,165	7,450	−17.2%
Jacob Dawang, City of Edmonton Open Data

To look up any other neighbourhood, filter by period or project type, or see where permits are on the map, use the neighbourhood infill dashboard.

The eight-unit concentration

In 2025, projects with exactly eight units dominated the fiveplex to eightplex category in the RS Zone, a direct consequence of the eight-unit cap. Table 5 covers all RS Zone permits from 1 to 8 units, comparing Q1–Q3 2025 to Q1–Q3 2026. The eight-unit rowhome is still the single biggest source of small-scale homes, essentially flat from last year at 180 permits and 1,440 homes (184 and 1,472 in Q1–Q3 2025). What’s new this quarter is growth just below the cap: seven-unit permits jumped from 15 to 50, and six-unit permits rose from 31 to 47. As a result, eight-unit projects make up 49% of RS Zone homes this year, down from 56% last year.

Altogether, RS Zone permits for 1 to 8 units added 2,925 homes in Q1–Q3 2026, up from 2,622 last year, even as the city as a whole permitted fewer homes. Given that eight-unit projects continue to account for the largest share of small-scale supply, I remain glad that City Council chose not to reduce the number of units permitted to six. The next section puts numbers on what a lower cap would cost, should the provincial government interfere.

Table 5: RS Zone 1–8 unit permits by exact unit count, Q1–Q3 2025 vs Q1–Q3 2026

Units per permit	Permits (Q1–Q3 2025)	Homes (Q1–Q3 2025)	Permits (Q1–Q3 2026)	Homes (Q1–Q3 2026)
RS Zone: permits by unit count
Q1–Q3 2025 vs. Q1–Q3 2026
1	233	233	216	216
2	117	234	94	188
3	3	9	14	42
4	87	348	93	372
5	7	35	7	35
6	31	186	47	282
7	15	105	50	350
8	184	1,472	180	1,440
sum	677	2622	701	2925
Jacob Dawang, City of Edmonton Open Data

What a lower cap would cost

The RS Zone permits up to eight units per lot today, but with the provincial government signalling its interest, one of the ways they could kneecap the RS Zone is with a unit cap. With no specific proposal on the table, I show a range for each cap level: the low end assumes every project over the cap still gets built, just shrunk to fit. The high end assumes it doesn’t get built at all, because the land economics that pencil out an eight-unit rowhome don’t necessarily pencil out a smaller building on the same lot. Table 6 applies this to every RS Zone permit for 1 to 8 units issued since January 2024, when the eight-unit ceiling actually took effect.

Table 6: Homes lost under hypothetical unit caps, RS Zone 1–8 unit permits

Hypothetical cap	Q1–Q3 2026			Since Jan 2024
Homes lost under a lower unit cap
RS Zone permits, 1–8 units
Hypothetical cap	Built at cap	Not built	Share of homes	Built at cap	Not built	Share of homes
1-unit cap	2,224	2,709	23%–28%	5,986	7,436	14%–18%
2-unit cap	1,739	2,521	18%–26%	4,536	6,632	11%–16%
3-unit cap	1,348	2,479	14%–25%	3,488	6,539	8%–16%
4-unit cap	971	2,107	10%–22%	2,471	5,323	6%–13%
5-unit cap	687	2,072	7%–21%	1,758	5,208	4%–12%
6-unit cap	410	1,790	4%–18%	1,068	4,518	3%–11%
7-unit cap	180	1,440	2%–15%	493	3,944	1%–9%
Jacob Dawang, City of Edmonton Open Data

Even a cap of four units is not a small concession. Since January 2024, a four-unit cap would have cost Edmonton somewhere between 2,471 and 5,323 homes — 6% to 13% of everything the city has permitted in that span. A two-unit cap, effectively a return to the duplex-era rules the RS Zone replaced, would have cost 4,536 to 6,632 homes.

Because 2024 was a ramp-up year for small-scale infill, if we take the Q1–Q3 2026 numbers to be the steady state, the situation looks much worse. A four-unit cap would cost up to 22% of Edmonton’s housing permitted and a two-unit cap, 26%. That won’t just raise rent, but also lead to losses in good construction jobs as homes are not built.

Figure 11: Cumulative homes permitted city-wide since Jan 2024, actual vs. hypothetical unit caps on RS Zone permits

Figure 11 shows how that gap builds up month by month since the RS Zone took effect. The coloured lines assume the worst case: every over-cap project simply wouldn’t have been built.

Building close to transit

2025 set a record for the proportion of homes permitted within 800m of transit. At mid-year, 2026 was running in line with last year, but with the third quarter in, it has slipped. Figure 12 compares the cumulative distribution of homes by distance from the nearest LRT stop, across years. Within 800m of transit, the cumulative share of homes is 25% in Q1–Q3 2026, compared to 30% in 2025 (full year). Part of this is likely the apartment slowdown again, since large apartment projects tend to cluster around stations.

Nevertheless, the Zoning Bylaw Renewal is still doing heavy work, as 2026 is still shaping up to be a great year for transit-oriented housing. Like 2025, the entire distribution has shifted to indicate more homes, closer to transit.

Figure 12: Cumulative distribution of homes by distance from nearest LRT stop

If you prefer a map, Figure 13 shows that the 5–8 unit rowhomes continue to trace the path of the LRT, especially the Valley Line West through the west end. The Valley Line East keeps filling in too, around King Edward Park and Bonnie Doon. The main exception is a cluster of rowhomes on the north side, beyond the reach of any existing or under-construction station.

Figure 13: Map of Q1–Q3 2026 5–8 unit RS Zone permits relative to LRT

Beyond LRT: the frequent bus network

LRT isn’t Edmonton’s only high-quality transit. ETS’s Frequent Network, routes 1 through 9, is scheduled to run every 15 minutes throughout the day, seven days a week. Because buses have a shorter effective walkshed than LRT, I use a 400m threshold for frequent bus stops instead of the 800m threshold used for LRT throughout this post. Figure 14 shows the same cumulative-distribution view as Figure 12, but for each home’s raw distance to the nearer of LRT or a frequent bus stop. Both walking thresholds are marked on the chart.

Figure 14: Cumulative distribution of homes by distance to nearest LRT or frequent bus stop

Counting the frequent bus network alongside LRT meaningfully expands how much of Q1–Q3 2026’s housing supply counts as close to high-quality transit: 41% of homes were within 800m of LRT or 400m of a frequent bus stop, compared to 25% for LRT alone. Figure 15 shows both networks together, with LRT stops and their 800m radius in red and frequent bus stops and their 400m radius in orange. The frequent bus network fills in a lot of the gaps between LRT lines in the west end and central neighbourhoods.

Figure 15: Map of Q1–Q3 2026 5–8 unit RS Zone permits relative to LRT and the frequent bus network

Conclusions

Overall building permit activity through Q1–Q3 2026 is 27.3% below 2025’s record pace, but most of that slowdown is explained by fewer large apartment projects, a category that has always been lumpy and unpredictable from year to year. Look at the RS Zone specifically, and the story is unambiguously positive: the 5–8 unit rowhome category is on track for another record, is projected to be the largest category of homes permitted citywide for the first time, and mature neighbourhoods have added homes at 2.7 times their pre-2024 pace since the RS Zone took effect. All of that while redeveloping only 1.2% of RS-zoned properties.

That’s why the province’s interest in Edmonton’s zoning bylaw matters. Small-scale infill is no longer a side story in Edmonton’s housing supply; it’s one of its biggest contributors. As the lower cap scenarios show, even a “compromise” cap would remove thousands of homes from the pipeline. We’re already seeing the effects of increased housing supply in Edmonton over the past two years, with rents coming down and landlords offering incentives. Restricting the RS Zone would put that at risk.

The data continues to make the case for the RS Zone. To see what’s being built in your own neighbourhood, check out the new infill dashboard. If you’d like to help advocate for more housing choice in Edmonton, consider joining Grow Together Edmonton.