We talk a lot on this blog about laneway housing and ADUs, including, of course, the one that Globizen built earlier this year. But beyond being exceedingly cool (see above), what has this policy change meant at the macro level? To what extent is it actually helping housing supply? Let's consider Toronto.

As a reminder, "laneway suites" became permissible in the former/old City of Toronto in 2018. The policies where then expanded to the entire city of Toronto in the summer of 2019. So we've had just over 2 years of this housing type being fully allowed city-wide.

Though it's worth keeping in mind that there are only so many laneways in Toronto (which is why "garden suites" are going to be important and may actually end up being more impactful):

Between the introduction of laneway suites and June 2021, the City of Toronto received 306 permit applications to construct, of which 238 were associated with a unique address (the same address can have multiple permit applications).

During this same time period, 183 permits were issued. 107 were still under review at the time this report was written. 15 were refused. And 1 was classified as "unknown", which I guess means it got lost in the ether or under someone's desk.

Some of you will probably argue that this isn't enough new housing for a city of 3 million people with high home prices, high demand, and high immigration. And I would agree.

But it's still early days, there will be an adoption curve, and the policies are still being tweaked to further remove some of the barriers associated with delivering this housing type. Of the 238 unique addresses that submitted a permit application, just over a quarter of them had an associated minor variance application, which means that they did not fully conform to the current laneway suite by-law.

The most common obstacles appear to be the 1.5m laneway setback, the soft landscaping requirements, and the required fire access. But I know that there are others too. I could have used another foot or two in height on mine.

But as I mentioned before, there are more areas in this city without laneways than with. And so garden suites are going to be an integral component of city-wide ADUs. This will certainly help the adoption curve.

I continue to believe that these are all steps in the right direction and that this is an exciting time for Toronto. We are in the midst of transforming our laneways. But we're not done yet. We're going to have to make many other tough decisions in order to further increase housing supply. I'm positive we'll get there.

This afternoon my friend Gabriel, of Gabriel Fain Architects, sent me the work of APOLLO Architects & Associates. They are based in Japan and South Korea. Here is a preview of some of their “private houses”:

There is a lot that I love about these homes. 

I love their simplicity. Look at this handrail detail. Nothing more than what is absolutely necessary.

I love their modesty. Many of the above homes hover around 150 square meters and many of them are much much smaller. 

I love that each project’s description starts by talking about the owners and the site conditions, signaling that each home represents an individual response tailored to both the occupants and the context.

And I love that many of these homes have been built on unthinkably small parcels of land in dense urban settings; parcels that would be dismissed as entirely useless in other parts of the world. 

The site area for this home is 46.53 square meters and the building’s footprint is 36.93 square meters.

Of course the Japanese housing market is a unique place. It’s worth pointing that out. 

But as I browsed through what are effectively custom single family homes, I couldn’t help but be reminded that there’s a fine line between need and want.

Small can be very beautiful. But small is also subjective.

One of the most widely read posts on this blog is this one here, called: Why it’s next to impossible to get a laneway house built in Toronto. Clearly, there’s a tremendous amount of interest in this housing type both here in the city and elsewhere.

Since I wrote that past over 2 years ago, I have been bombarded with emails from people asking me the status of the project and if I could help them achieve something similar on their properties. And my response was always the same: sorry, the project is on hold.

But over the last few years, things have changed. Home prices have risen dramatically in this city. At the beginning of 2017, the average price of a detached house reached almost $1.6 million – representing a year-over-year increase of nearly 30%!

In part because of this, laneway housing has also entered mainstream consciousness thanks to groups and initiatives such as The Laneway Project, Lanescape, Evergreen, the University of Toronto, and so on. There are now Councillors advocating for them within City Hall, which was not the case even a few years ago.

Given all of these changes, I decided that it was time to dust off my laneway house design and make a serious go at it. So I called up my architect friend Gabriel Fain and asked him if he would help me pioneer this new housing typology. He immediately said yes.

Last week a revised version of Mackay Laneway House was submitted to the city, kick-starting the approvals process. Here’s a rendering showing the north elevation (view from existing house):

The next step will be a trip to the Committee of Adjustment to obtain the necessary variances. But even with all of the momentum building in the city right now around more affordable housing solutions, this will not be a slam dunk. 

So in parallel to all of this, we have also launched a new website called lanewaylove.com. Here you will find general information about laneway housing, as well as floor plans of the proposal. But most importantly, we hope it will serve as a tool to generate support for this and other laneway houses in Toronto.

At the bottom of the site is a link that will allow you to support Mackay Laneway House by submitting your name, email, and postal code. The reason it also asks for your postal code is so that we can anonymously match supporters with specific areas of the city. We think this will be valuable information going forward.

If you believe that Toronto would be well-served by more affordable and sustainable housing solutions, I would encourage you to sign your name at lanewaylove.com and share this post with your network. We would greatly appreciate your support.

Here we go!