Tag: fourplexes

• More homes, less rezonings

  One of the really positive things that is happening in the world of Toronto land use planning is that the minimum scale of development that is permitted as-of-right continues to grow. We’ve gone from fourplexes to 6-storey apartments, and now we’re talking about mid-rise buildings (6-11 storeys) and even some tall buildings (12 storeys or more).

  What this ultimately means is being able to build without a rezoning application. That means no site specific negotiation, and no fighting over whether the building should be 32 meters tall or 30.5 meters tall with a 2.4 meter stepback because of shadowing concerns on someone’s heritage-designated garden gnome. It means getting under construction sooner.

  Here are some of the specific ideas being reviewed:

  • Expand the number of streets designated as “Avenues” throughout Toronto (Avenues are a defined term and where we have decided that mid-rise buildings should go)
  • New Official Plan policies that would encourage more mid-rise buildings on Avenues
  • Eliminate the rear angular plane requirement (currently a mid-rise performance standard); this is expected to produce ~30% more homes in your typical mid-rise development
  • Increase as-of-right permitted heights to 6-11 storeys (the city estimates that this will unlock ~61,000 additional homes)
  • Introduce “transition zones” between Avenues and low-rise neighborhoods, which could then accommodate things like low-rise towns and apartments up to 4 storeys (it’s worth noting that transition zones were initially part of Toronto’s mid-rise performance standards but then got removed for some reason)

  This is meaningful progress. Let’s enact and keep going.

  2024.11.11

• Canadian cities will need to freeze their development charges if they want infrastructure fund money

  Here’s some positive news. This past week, the Government of Canada announced additional details around its $6 billion Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund (CHIF). The goal of the fund is to accelerate the construction of housing-supportive infrastructure (water, wastewater, stormwater, and solid waste), and the plan is to deliver it through two distinct funding streams.

  The first is what they are calling a “direct delivery stream”, and this is how the first $1 billion is going to be allocated. Municipalities and Indigenous communities will need to apply, and the funds are expected to be distributed over the next 8 years. But to be eligible — and this is the positive news — municipalities will need to have done the following:

  • Adopt zoning permitting “four units as-of-right” per lot in all low-density residential areas that have municipal servicing
  • Implement a three-year freeze on development charge increases beyond whatever rates were in place on April 2, 2024 (which is when the initial CHIF announcement was made)

  Toronto has already done number one. But many/most other municipalities have not, so this should provide a further incentive. As for requirement number two, my understanding is that this is not (yet) in place pretty much anywhere. I haven’t heard of any municipalities committing to this. So I’m taking this as incremental good news. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.)

  There are, however, important caveats: item number two only applies to municipalities with populations greater than 300,000 people. This seems unnecessarily high. And I can speak from firsthand experience working in communities below this threshold.

  Three-years also isn’t very long when it comes to development timelines, especially in this market. A complicated rezoning process might take 3 years, or even 10 years. So this is very much for small-scale projects, which may be impactful or it may not be, depending on quickly the market responds to policy changes like requirement number one.

  The last thing I will say, and this relates to yesterday’s post, is that freezing is good, but lowering is obviously better.

  2024.11.09

• The missing middle will come, eventually

  Yesterday Lloyd Alter of Treehugger wrote a great rebuttal to my post about homes for families. His argument was that I missed a whole world of building typologies between single family homes and apartments. (Something that architect and urban planner Daniel Parolek calls “The Missing Middle”.)

  Now he’s absolutely right. I didn’t mention it – other than provide an option in the survey for townhomes. And he’s right that it’s a tremendous opportunity for cities looking to increase housing supply and improve affordability.

  But the reason I didn’t mention it in my survey is because, here in Toronto, we’re not very good at that middle scale.

  I previously wrote a post talking about Toronto’s 3 stages of intensification. It went from high-rise to mid-rise, and then to low-rise intensification. And my argument was that we’re still in and figuring out the mid-rise scale. (There are challenges at this scale, but that deserves a separate post.)

  Eventually though, I think we will get to low-rise intensification. And that will cover off many of the building typologies that Lloyd is talking about: duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and, my personal favorite, laneway houses.

  This, of course, isn’t the case in every city. Many cities, such as Montreal, have a strong history of neighborhood-scaled apartments. Lloyd points that out in his article. But that’s not the case here in Toronto.

  In fact, Toronto’s Official Plan explicitly designates these low-rise “Neighborhoods” as areas that are stable and should not see much intensification. And it was a great selling point for the Places to Grow Act: intensification here, but not there.

  But I think this will change. Not because I’m a real estate developer and I think it should change, but because our current arrangement is causing a dramatic erosion of affordability at the low-rise/ground-related housing scale.

  If it were up to me, and it most certainly is not, I would start with laneway housing. It’s a great way to intensify low-rise neighbourhoods without altering the character of the streets.

  If you live in a single family neighborhood, I would especially love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. 

  2015.06.03