Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communication are described. A wireless device such as a user equipment (UE) or a base station may identify a set of resource element groups (REGs) for low latency communication, and each REG may include a portion of a different resource block (RB) of a set of RBs (e.g., a set of non-contiguous RBs). The device may then map an uplink control channel to the selected REGs and communicate on the uplink control channel accordingly. Reference signals may also be transmitted in the same RBs, and the REGs may be mapped around the resources used for reference signals. In some cases, multiple UEs may transmit uplink control data using the same resources using code division multiplexing (CDM) (e.g., if the control payload is relatively small). In other cases, multiple UEs may be frequency division multiplexed (FDM).