As of August 2018, the City of Toronto has allowed laneway suites (accessory dwelling units) to be built as-of-right in the Toronto and East York area of the city (subject to meeting some criteria).

This was a tremendous step forward for the city. And I know a number of people who are currently taking advantage of these new planning permissions.

Toronto is now looking at expanding these permissions across the entire city and they have just started their community engagement phase. The first public meeting took place today and the next three will be taking place over the course of this month. Click here for the when and where.

This is a natural extension of the policies that have already been put in place around laneway suites and I'm excited to see this moving forward.

For those of you who already own property in Toronto & East York and are considering building a laneway suite, there are two programs that you should be aware of.

The first one allows eligible property owners to defer development charges on the new secondary dwelling unit for up to 20 years. This is meaningful. And the second is a $50k forgivable loan if you make the laneway suite an affordable rental for at least 15 years. (The cap is the City of Toronto Average Market Rent.)

I still remember what happened when I tried to build a laneway house almost 10 years ago. I was told, by the city, that a house cannot be built behind another house. I knew that would change. Now look at how far we've come.

Image: Lanescape

Some of you might remember that last summer the city refused my laneway house/suite here in Toronto.

Well that was last summer and this is this summer.

On May 2, 2018 – which just so happens to be my birthday – Toronto and East York Community Council will consider a staff report for a City-initiated Official Plan Amendment and Zoning By-law Amendment that would permit laneway suites in the Toronto & East York District.

Here are a couple of excerpts from the summary section (full report, here):

This report recommends establishing a planning framework to permit laneway suites on lands within the Toronto and East York District that are designated as Neighbourhoods by amending both the Official Plan and City-wide Zoning By-law.

A second unit can take many forms but is generally considered to be subordinate to the primary dwelling unit on a lot. Second units are an important part of the City’s rental housing stock. Laneway suites are one form of second unit.

This report contains a detailed planning rationale for the introduction and regulation of laneway suites within the Toronto and East York area and discusses the policy implications and intent of proposed performance standards and criteria. 

These performance standards and criteria intend that laneway suites will provide a new form of ground-related, rental and extended family housing that will fit appropriately within the scale of established Neighbourhoods, and limit their impact on the existing physical character, while contributing to the growth of the City’s rental housing stock.

What a thoughtful birthday gift. Thank you.

I just finished going through the work of Studio North. My friend Peter introduced me to them through this Globe article. 

They are a Calgary-based design-build practice that have completed a number of laneway houses, as well as bigger projects such as this 34 unit townhouse project in Canmore, Alberta.

What (not surprisingly) caught my attention was their focus on laneway/accessory dwellings. Pictured above is their Bowling Lane House in Crescent Heights, Calgary. 

It’s a 700 sf one-bedroom house that sits behind a 1920′s heritage house. Here is an axonometric of that relationship (the existing house was made transparent):

Here is an elevation from the main street. Look at how neatly it tucks behind the existing house. All you really notice is the garage of Bowling Lane House.

Here is how Bowling Lane House fits into its laneway.

And here are two images of the double height space that they managed to create within this 700 sf house.

Notwithstanding that this is a wider lot than what you might typically find in Toronto, it is precisely the kind of housing – both in terms of design quality and scale – that I was trying to create with Mackay Laneway House. It’s also where I was planning to move.

Kudos to the Studio North team for driving this initiative in Calgary. You can check out the rest of their projects here. They have a number of other laneway houses within their portfolio. And all of them are beautiful.

All images from Studio North.