Before laneway homes were permitted as-of-right in Toronto, many people couldn't imagine them being a viable housing solution, let alone a desirable housing solution. I vividly remember some critics arguing that only people of questionable moral fiber would want to live in a laneway. Toronto's laneways were only suitable for garages, cars, graffiti, and degenerates, apparently.

If you're a longtime reader of this blog you'll know that I've always felt differently. In 2014, I wrote a post calling laneway homes the new loft. And in 2021, after Mackay Laneway House was finished, I wrote that "slowly but surely, we will start to think of our lanes not as back of house, but as front of house." I went on to surmise that, one day, our laneways could even become the more desirable side of a property.

I was reminded of this prognostication earlier this week when a friend of mine, who is very active in the multiplex space, was touring me through one of his construction sites. What struck me is that he said that on every single one of his projects, the highest-grossing suite is always the laneway or garden suite. It commands the highest rent and it's what gets the most showings.

This, of course, makes sense. It's a standalone structure, whereas the other homes in a multiplex building are not. And if you have the site area to do two storeys, these suites can become relatively large — oftentimes between 1,200 and 1,400 sf. Laneways are also intimate and largely pedestrian-oriented streets, so a nice place to live.

But there's some hindsight bias in this obviousness. It wasn't that long ago that most Torontonians couldn't imagine a "house fitting behind a house." It was an unthinkable solution that would ruin the character of our low-rise neighborhoods. Now we have planning policies that not only allow them, but that are, in a way, promoting an inversion in the way our low-rise neighborhoods function.

Toronto's policies allow up to six suites on the "front" of certain properties, plus a laneway or garden suite at the "back," for a total of 7 suites. The effect is that an entirely new single-family house layer is today getting built on our laneways. An alternative way to think about this is that it's like taking an existing single-family house, pushing it to the back, and then building a small "houseplex" in the front.

Ironically, all of these policies were born out of a deep desire to not change the character of existing neighborhoods. It's why no one would dare call these six-unit structures anything resembling an apartment. They are house-plexes, which are just like single-family houses, but with an added plex in the name. Nothing out of the ordinary to see here.

But our neighborhoods are changing and they will continue to change. The market is already speaking in terms of which new homes it finds most desirable. And in the end, that's a good thing. Change and evolution are features, not bugs, of cities. When Toronto stops growing and adapting, that's when we need to start worrying.

Back in 2014, I compared laneway housing to lofts because of the latter's origin story. When manufacturing began to leave cities and warehouses started to get converted to apartments, they were viewed as dangerous, illegal misuses of commercial spaces. It was housing that no respectable middle-class person would want to live in.

Then the opposite became true. Loft living became a symbol of urban cool, so much so that every new apartment somehow became a "loft." I'm not suggesting that Toronto's laneway suites are about to stage a global takeover in quite the same way, but some 11 years later, I do think it's following the same arc of desirability. The things we desire aren't as enshrined as they may seem.

Cover photo by Nikhil Mitra on Unsplash

Before laneway homes were permitted as-of-right in Toronto, many people couldn't imagine them being a viable housing solution, let alone a desirable housing solution. I vividly remember some critics arguing that only people of questionable moral fiber would want to live in a laneway. Toronto's laneways were only suitable for garages, cars, graffiti, and degenerates, apparently.

If you're a longtime reader of this blog you'll know that I've always felt differently. In 2014, I wrote a post calling laneway homes the new loft. And in 2021, after Mackay Laneway House was finished, I wrote that "slowly but surely, we will start to think of our lanes not as back of house, but as front of house." I went on to surmise that, one day, our laneways could even become the more desirable side of a property.

I was reminded of this prognostication earlier this week when a friend of mine, who is very active in the multiplex space, was touring me through one of his construction sites. What struck me is that he said that on every single one of his projects, the highest-grossing suite is always the laneway or garden suite. It commands the highest rent and it's what gets the most showings.

This, of course, makes sense. It's a standalone structure, whereas the other homes in a multiplex building are not. And if you have the site area to do two storeys, these suites can become relatively large — oftentimes between 1,200 and 1,400 sf. Laneways are also intimate and largely pedestrian-oriented streets, so a nice place to live.

But there's some hindsight bias in this obviousness. It wasn't that long ago that most Torontonians couldn't imagine a "house fitting behind a house." It was an unthinkable solution that would ruin the character of our low-rise neighborhoods. Now we have planning policies that not only allow them, but that are, in a way, promoting an inversion in the way our low-rise neighborhoods function.

Toronto's policies allow up to six suites on the "front" of certain properties, plus a laneway or garden suite at the "back," for a total of 7 suites. The effect is that an entirely new single-family house layer is today getting built on our laneways. An alternative way to think about this is that it's like taking an existing single-family house, pushing it to the back, and then building a small "houseplex" in the front.

Ironically, all of these policies were born out of a deep desire to not change the character of existing neighborhoods. It's why no one would dare call these six-unit structures anything resembling an apartment. They are house-plexes, which are just like single-family houses, but with an added plex in the name. Nothing out of the ordinary to see here.

But our neighborhoods are changing and they will continue to change. The market is already speaking in terms of which new homes it finds most desirable. And in the end, that's a good thing. Change and evolution are features, not bugs, of cities. When Toronto stops growing and adapting, that's when we need to start worrying.

Back in 2014, I compared laneway housing to lofts because of the latter's origin story. When manufacturing began to leave cities and warehouses started to get converted to apartments, they were viewed as dangerous, illegal misuses of commercial spaces. It was housing that no respectable middle-class person would want to live in.

Then the opposite became true. Loft living became a symbol of urban cool, so much so that every new apartment somehow became a "loft." I'm not suggesting that Toronto's laneway suites are about to stage a global takeover in quite the same way, but some 11 years later, I do think it's following the same arc of desirability. The things we desire aren't as enshrined as they may seem.

Cover photo by Nikhil Mitra on Unsplash