# Okay, fine, I support your laneway house

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2024-03-09

committee-of-adjustment, gabriel-fain, laneway-housing, laneway-suite, mackay-avenue, mackay-laneway-house, minor-variances, planning, toronto, urbanism

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This week, I received a notice in the mail that a neighbor to [Mackay Laneway House](https://www.globizen.com/mackay-laneway-house) is seeking variances for their own laneway house. I immediately thought to myself, "oh, the hypocrisy." Here is a neighbor that _vehemently_ opposed my [Committee of Adjustment application back in 2017](https://brandondonnelly.com/2017/08/11/the-city-refused-my-laneway-house/) and now wants to do something similar.

It's also not like you _need_ minor variances in order to build a laneway house today. They are, as many of you know, permitted as-of-right. That's how MLH was ultimately built. We went straight to building permit. But in this case, the request is for 7 variances to the current by-law. The build aspires to go above and beyond.

As I'm sure you can imagine, there's part of me that wants to be a real asshole here. But of course, that would run counter to many of the objectives that we regularly cover on this blog: more housing, [revitalized laneways](https://brandondonnelly.com/2024/03/07/4-predictions-for-torontos-laneways/), and so on. So I can't do that. It's directionally the right city building move, and they have my full support.

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/okay,-fine,-i-support-your-laneway-house)*