Search results for: “laneway”

• Toronto approves city-wide expansion of laneway suites

  This a big month for laneway (housing) advocates in Toronto. Last week, City Council voted in favor of expanding the policy provisions for laneway suites to all Neighbourhoods within the city. (Neighbourhood is a defined term in the city’s Official Plan.)

  Previously, the policies — which allow laneway suites to be built as-of-right — only applied to the Toronto & East York Districts. Here’s a copy of the recent staff report in case you would like more information.

  On Monday, my friend Alex Sharpe (of Lanescape) was on BNN Bloomberg talking about why this is a good thing for the city. Alex and the rest of the team at Lanescape have been instrumental in these policy changes.

  If you’re a Toronto homeowner with a property that fronts onto a laneway, I would encourage you to consider this opportunity. It’s a way to increase the value of your home and it’s a way to create more rental housing in this city.

  2019.07.23

• Laneway suites all across the city

  

  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

  2019.05.01

• Laneway house on the market for $2,845,000

  I was looking at this laneway house for sale in Toronto today. It’s located near Queen and Bathurst. It has 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and is about 2,331 square feet (that looks to include a basement). The lot appears to be just over 13′ wide. And the asking price is $2,845,000.

  Single family homes aren’t typically considered on a per square foot basis, but if you do the math here, it works out to be around $1,220 psf. The property previously sold in 2017 for $805,000, which was prior to it being redeveloped. So it likely traded based on land value.

  When Toronto first started considering modern laneway houses, some people thought that only individuals of questionable moral fiber would want to live in one. But today, there are countless examples of some pretty remarkable laneway houses. 

  And in some cases you might need about $3 million or so.

  2019.01.18

• Vancouver revisits laneway house program

  

  Vancouver is light years ahead of Toronto when it comes to laneway housing/suites. And by light years I mean that their Laneway House (LWH) Program is about a decade old now.

  Last month the City of Vancouver published this staff report which outlined recommendations for improving the program. It includes simplifying the regulations, reducing processing timelines, and improving livability in LWHs.

  This aligns with their Housing Vancouver Strategy (2018-2027), which has set a target of 4,000 new LWHs over the coming ten years. That may not seem like a lot and certainly it won’t solve everything, but I reckon that 4,000 is better than 0.

  The city also estimates that approximately 50% of these new LWHs will be two and three bedroom homes, which makes them a viable housing solution for families who want to remain in the city. (Related post: Where are all the kids?)

  There’s a lot of good stuff in the staff report if you’re so inclined, but I’ll leave you with a few facts about the current LWH program in Vancouver. 90% of LWHs are built along with a new house. And 45% of all new houses, so almost half, are now built with a LWH.

  Only 10% of LWHs are single storey, which certainly helps to support the above percentage of two and three bedroom homes. And in both 2016 and 2017 over 500 building permits for LWHs were issued each year.

  So 4,000 LWHs over the next decade may actually be a fairly conservative estimate. Thank you to Michael Geller for sending me this staff report.

  Photo by Spencer Watson on Unsplash

  2018.06.23

• Toronto Community Council voted unanimously in favor of laneway suites

  It happened.

  Today, Toronto and East York Community Council voted unanimously in favor of adopting a planning framework that would allow laneway suites on lands within the Toronto and East York District that are designated as “Neighbourhoods.” 

  If you’d like to see the actual vote (and the clapping that ensued), check out this YouTube video at the 41 minute mark. There are also some great speeches prior to the vote by Councillor Bailão, Councillor Perks, and others.

  Now, it still needs to go through City Council, but today remains an important milestone and a positive step forward. So kudos to everyone who has been working tirelessly to push this initiative forward.

  I would also like to take this opportunity to address some of the comments that I recently received about this blog, one of which is that I continue to offer a one-sided perspective on this issue of laneway housing in Toronto.

  Think of this blog – and I’m stealing this analogy from another blogger – as a bar. I am the bartender and I show up here pretty much every day. I’ve been doing that consistently for almost 5 years now.

  At this bar I sip on negronis – okay, it’s probably beer – and I talk about topics and issues that excite me and that are usually related to city building. If it doesn’t excite me, I don’t talk/write about it. And I get lots of emails every day asking me to write about things that do not excite me.

  If you would like to take a seat at the bar, have a drink, and join the conversation, you are more than welcome to do that in the comment section at the bottom of every post. In fact, it’s encouraged. I make a mean vodka soda.

  So maybe I’ll see you at the bar. The bartender is a fairly open-minded guy who enjoys good conversation.

  2018.06.07

• Toronto laneway suites go back to Community Council

  Last month the Official Plan Amendment and Zoning By-law Amendment that would have permitted laneway suites as-of-right in Toronto was deferred by Community Council. 

  So the “Changing Lanes” policy has been updated – to obviously make it more restrictive – and it will head back to Toronto and East York Community Council this week on Wednesday, June 6th. 

  Lanescape did a great job summarizing some of the updates on their blog. Here are a couple of their images:

  

  If you haven’t already, now is the time to write your local Councillor and TEYCC to tell them that you support laneway suites and the proposed Changing Lanes policy. I did that last month and I did it again this month. I hope that many of you will do the same.

  2018.06.04

• Toronto is finally ready to permit laneway suites

  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.

  2018.04.23

• Bringing laneway suites to Toronto

  This morning I presented and sat on a panel at BILD called “bringing laneway suites to Toronto.” The other participants were Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon, George Pantazis (Planner at the City of Toronto), Mike Collins-Williams (Director, Policy at OHBA), and Andrew Sorbara (co-founder of Lanescape).

  Here is a photo that Mike took of me while I was talking about my failed laneway house:

  

  For those of you wondering if/when this will happen in Toronto, here are the key takeaways from this morning: The city is already drafting laneway suite policies specific to Toronto & East York (not the other parts of the city) and they are due to report back to council in Q2-2018. Nothing is 100% certain at this stage, but there’s lots of optimism. 

  Councillor McMahon delivered this morning’s opening remarks and I was impressed by her deep commitment to laneway suites. I was also impressed by her stance on NIMBYISM, saying that education is important and that we can’t let NIMBYs stop what makes sense for the greater city.

  She gave the example of the 6 storey condominium in her ward that faced fierce community opposition a number of years back. If you can’t put a midrise building on a main street in this city, where can you put it? 

  2017.11.02

• The city refused my laneway house

  

  This afternoon I stood up at the Committee of Adjustment (Etobicoke York) to present the laneway house proposal that Gabriel Fain Architects and I have been working on for the past year and that I have been working on since 2009.

  But before I could start I was told that Councillor Palacio had just submitted a last minute letter to the Committee. I was given a few minutes to read it, but the big bold “REFUSE” was probably the only word I needed to read.

  I was then asked if I had read planning staff’s report. I acknowledged that I had read it and that I was aware that they were also recommending refusal of the application. I also noted that a number of my immediate neighbors sitting behind me were also opposed to the proposal.

  That’s how my presentation started. 

  At this point you might be wondering: why bother?

  I stood up today because, as most of you already know, laneway housing is something that I feel strongly about. This isn’t just about my individual project. I mean, why do all of this work for one small dwelling unit? For me, this is about city building and trying to affect positive change. (I would also love to live on a laneway.)

  I could go on here about how the proposal was shorter than other existing structures on the lane, how the FSI was in check, how we had carefully studied shadows, and how planning staff had already supported greater densities and multiple dwellings on lots of similar size in the area. 

  But that’s not what today was really about.

  Today I heard loud and clear that whether the proposal was a laneway tiki hut or a 2 storey laneway suite, the community did not want more people living in the area and they most certainly did not want more renters living in the area.

  My message to the Committee was that in my humble opinion this is inevitable. Look to Vancouver. Look to Edmonton. Look to many other cities. What we are debating today, or at least what we should be debating today, is what these laneway houses or suites or tiki huts are going to look like.

  Right or wrong, our proposal was an attempt to answer that question. We looked carefully at what others had done before us, including our friends at Lanescape and Evergreen, and we proposed something that we believed was sensitive to its context.

  We were unsuccessful.

  But here’s the silver lining. At the end of it all, and right before a motion was made to refuse the application, one of the committee members said something very impactful. He more or less said: “I agree with you. This is inevitable.”

  Sadly today was not that day.

  I would like to thank everyone who came out today and everyone who got up to speak in support of laneway housing. It meant a lot to me. Some of you are also readers of this blog and it was great to meet you in person. Thank you.

  2017.08.11

• Laneway house support map

  I posted the following image to Twitter this morning:

  

  It’s a map of some of the people who support my proposed laneway house (in midtown Toronto) and have signed their name at lanewaylove.com.

  To me, this is an incredible demonstration of the kind of broad-based support that exists in this city today for laneway housing/suites.

  I met with some of my neighbors last week to discuss the proposal and one of them said to me: “I can tell that you’re genuinely passionate about this idea.” 

  My response: “You’re absolutely right. I am. This is not just about my singular project or the money. This is about something much bigger for the city.”

  Clearly, many others see that as well. 

  I know that there’s been a lot of laneway talk on the blog over the past few weeks and months. It’s been on my mind as I prepare for my project’s hearing next month.

  For those of you who have no interest in laneway housing/accessory dwelling units, rest assured that the laneway content should subside (a little) after the summer.

  2017.07.29