Up until last year, non-residential uses within Toronto's low-rise neighborhoods were typically legal non-confirming uses. Meaning, the use wasn't technically allowed, but if it had been there for a long and continuous time, we would let it slide and say it's legal.

Then we decided that small-scale retail, service, and office uses might be kind of good in our neighborhoods. Especially if they empower people to perform their daily necessities without a car. So we agreed to allow these sorts of uses provided they don't annoy too many people.

But what about in Toronto's laneways? Can and should they go there, too?

Recently, we've spoken a lot about the case for bottom-up city planning, and the value of micro-spaces and micro-businesses (à la Tokyo). And my overarching argument has been that these are a positive thing for cities. They create opportunity by lowering the barriers to entry.

But we need to get out of the way and we need small and affordable spaces. Which is why it's hard to imagine a more ideal place than in our laneways, especially considering that there's a long history of these spaces being used for exactly this. (Read this recent article by John Lorinc.)

Fortunately, this idea continues to gain positive momentum, thanks to people like the late Michelle Senayah (co-founder of the Laneway Project) and Blair Scorgie (a partner at Sajecki Planning). So in my mind, it's only a matter of time before we start getting out of the way.

Progress is happening slowly but surely.

Over the years we have spoken a few times about this nice little coffee shop on Shaw Street here in Toronto. It is a good looking and widely visited coffee shop that has made many guest appearances on urbanist Twitter.

The problem, though, is that it was a real battle to get it approved, thanks to the opposition of a single neighbor. That's all it takes to hold up a new project. In this case it was a coffee shop. But it could also be thousands of new homes.

But that was then. Today if you look on the City of Toronto's website you'll actually see this exact coffee shop on a page that speaks to the benefits and the historic role of small-scale retail, service, and office uses.

Right now these uses are only permitted in low-rise neighborhoods on major streets and through an amendment to the Zoning By-Law (unless the nonconforming use already exists). This is a lot of unnecessary work (see above) and it has translated into a steady decline in these sorts of uses across the city.