Broadview Avenue Group Toronto
Kenneth Yim
June 22, 2023
If you exclude major streets (that don’t have land use designations), approximately 75% of the land in Toronto only permits a single-family home to be developed on it. The other 20% are open spaces and employment zones (where people can work), leaving only 5% to be able to develop into denser uses. Furthermore, the re-zoning process is complicated and takes several years, and is an expensive process. So if you are faced with the choice to intensify land, you’d naturally want to swing for the fences, namely, large apartment buildings and condos.
This is where the “Missing Middle” term came from. It’s a range of housing types between single-family homes to apartment buildings that have gone missing from large cities.
As of May 10, 2023, The City of Toronto has adopted an amendment to the zoning by-law and official plan to allow multiplexes citywide, thereby eliminating single-family zoning. You can now create up to 4 units on all lots with residential zoning, plus a garden or lane suite.
Will this be enough to solve the housing crisis? What’s the cost to do so, and what does the process look like? Are there any objections from the community? Find out more in this episode featuring Craig Rice of Lanescape.ca.
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