The Toronto mid-rise housing typology is known for architectural forms that often end up looking something like this:

The reason for this is the infamous "45-degree angular plane" that gets applied when new developments abut low-rise residential neighborhoods. It is a way to transition down and mitigate some of the impacts associated with this kind of infill development -- usually the concerns are overlook, privacy, and shadowing.

These are, of course, legitimate concerns. But here's the other side: Should we really be reducing the number of homes that we can build on our main streets by carving away area like this? Is overlook and shadowing more important than additional housing? Stepping buildings like this also makes constructing them more expensive and cumbersome. Are higher costs the goal?

It is for reasons like these that some people have been paying attention to the new Danforth Avenue Planning Study that went to Toronto City Council this week. Among other things, the study recommended the relaxation of the 45-degree angular plane standard along a portion of the Danforth.

This is certainly a step in the right direction. But in my humble opinion, it's not nearly enough for an area that will ultimately sit at the intersection of two subway lines.

A reader recently suggested that I do a post explaining why we aren’t seeing more midrise buildings going up in Toronto. Specifically, why are midrise buildings considered to be “too risky” for developers and what could be done to improve the situation? So today I’d like to focus on that topic.

But first, let me say that I think Toronto is already in the midst of its midrise development era. The push for intensification first brought about towers, but we’ve come to realize that the tower isn’t necessarily going to serve everybody’s needs.

Here’s what John Bentley Mays recently wrote in the Globe and Mail regarding midrise developments:

With Duke, SQ, Nest and similar structures, we may be seeing the start of a promising design trend in Toronto’s multifamily housing market.

And given that our Chief Planner, Jennifer Keesmaat, has been a vocal supporter of midrise, I think there’s no question that we’ll only see more and more of this type of development. Nonetheless, there are challenges. Here are a few that come to mind.

1. Fragmented sites

Because midrise developments typically target established main streets with smaller lot sizes, developers often have to contend with fragmented ownership in order to assemble a site. So instead of talking to one owner (say the owner of a large parking lot downtown), a developer may have to contend with a dozen owners who all need to get on board for the development to happen.

2. Scale is too small

Developers have a lot of fixed costs that don’t materially change whether you’re putting up a 50 storey tower or an 8 storey midrise building. Some costs are certainly variable, but there are overall economies to scale to having more units in which to distribute costs over.

3. Community opposition

The whole point of midrise intensification is to increase the housing supply in established neighborhoods. But along with this comes greater risk for community opposition. You may have a neighbor who’s been living for 30 years adjacent to where you want to build. And when you come along and try and build a 10 storey midrise building, they can get grouchy.

4. Strict guidelines 

To try and counteract community opposition (and promote good urbanism), the city has developed a number of design guidelines for midrise buildings. And while they’re well intentioned, they can be onerous for developers and designers. For example, the requirement to terrace down towards adjacent residential neighborhoods produces a lot of inefficiencies (though it does create spectacular terraces). Oftentimes you’ll end up with more unit types than you would in a large tower.

All this said, I’m a big believer in the midrise building typology. At TAS, I’m involved in two such projects–DUKE and Kingston&Co. Both are exciting projects and both, I think, are at the forefront of a new development era for Toronto. Vancouver pioneered the podium + point tower typology. Toronto is about to do the same with midrise buildings.

The Toronto mid-rise housing typology is known for architectural forms that often end up looking something like this:

The reason for this is the infamous "45-degree angular plane" that gets applied when new developments abut low-rise residential neighborhoods. It is a way to transition down and mitigate some of the impacts associated with this kind of infill development -- usually the concerns are overlook, privacy, and shadowing.

These are, of course, legitimate concerns. But here's the other side: Should we really be reducing the number of homes that we can build on our main streets by carving away area like this? Is overlook and shadowing more important than additional housing? Stepping buildings like this also makes constructing them more expensive and cumbersome. Are higher costs the goal?

It is for reasons like these that some people have been paying attention to the new Danforth Avenue Planning Study that went to Toronto City Council this week. Among other things, the study recommended the relaxation of the 45-degree angular plane standard along a portion of the Danforth.

This is certainly a step in the right direction. But in my humble opinion, it's not nearly enough for an area that will ultimately sit at the intersection of two subway lines.

A reader recently suggested that I do a post explaining why we aren’t seeing more midrise buildings going up in Toronto. Specifically, why are midrise buildings considered to be “too risky” for developers and what could be done to improve the situation? So today I’d like to focus on that topic.

But first, let me say that I think Toronto is already in the midst of its midrise development era. The push for intensification first brought about towers, but we’ve come to realize that the tower isn’t necessarily going to serve everybody’s needs.

Here’s what John Bentley Mays recently wrote in the Globe and Mail regarding midrise developments:

With Duke, SQ, Nest and similar structures, we may be seeing the start of a promising design trend in Toronto’s multifamily housing market.

And given that our Chief Planner, Jennifer Keesmaat, has been a vocal supporter of midrise, I think there’s no question that we’ll only see more and more of this type of development. Nonetheless, there are challenges. Here are a few that come to mind.

1. Fragmented sites

Because midrise developments typically target established main streets with smaller lot sizes, developers often have to contend with fragmented ownership in order to assemble a site. So instead of talking to one owner (say the owner of a large parking lot downtown), a developer may have to contend with a dozen owners who all need to get on board for the development to happen.

2. Scale is too small

Developers have a lot of fixed costs that don’t materially change whether you’re putting up a 50 storey tower or an 8 storey midrise building. Some costs are certainly variable, but there are overall economies to scale to having more units in which to distribute costs over.

3. Community opposition

The whole point of midrise intensification is to increase the housing supply in established neighborhoods. But along with this comes greater risk for community opposition. You may have a neighbor who’s been living for 30 years adjacent to where you want to build. And when you come along and try and build a 10 storey midrise building, they can get grouchy.

4. Strict guidelines 

To try and counteract community opposition (and promote good urbanism), the city has developed a number of design guidelines for midrise buildings. And while they’re well intentioned, they can be onerous for developers and designers. For example, the requirement to terrace down towards adjacent residential neighborhoods produces a lot of inefficiencies (though it does create spectacular terraces). Oftentimes you’ll end up with more unit types than you would in a large tower.

All this said, I’m a big believer in the midrise building typology. At TAS, I’m involved in two such projects–DUKE and Kingston&Co. Both are exciting projects and both, I think, are at the forefront of a new development era for Toronto. Vancouver pioneered the podium + point tower typology. Toronto is about to do the same with midrise buildings.