Toronto councillors push to allow laneway housing
Residential housing on Toronto’s laneways could be an “opportunity for homeowners.”
Thestar.com
Nov. 14, 2016
By Betsy Powell
Laneway suites should be permitted across Toronto as part of the solution to the city’s affordable housing shortage while providing an alternative to vertical living, say two councillors behind the push at city hall.
“We’re getting 30,000 new residents a year in this city and we need different kinds of housing stock and this (is) an opportunity for homeowners and also for people who want to rent,” Ana Bailao, who is also the city’s housing advocate.
“Instead of just having (condo) towers in the downtown being built, it could be that this is a source of bringing more housing stock to Toronto in a responsible way.”
Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon noted Toronto has 2,400 publicly owned laneways, covering more than 250 linear kilometres of public space that could become more “active spaces in our urban fabric.”
“Unlocking these assets is a key part of creating safe, accessible spaces for residents to enjoy,” she said in a statement.
Toronto would be following the lead of other Canadian cities including Vancouver, Regina and Ottawa. In Vancouver, more than 800 permits for laneway housing have been issued and more than 500 built, the Victoria Times Colonist reported last month.
In the Greater Toronto Area, the rental apartment vacancy rate is 1.6 per cent and condos 1.8 per cent.
The dwellings envisioned are small structures, detached from the primary residence and built on top of garages or parking pads at the rear of a residential property adjacent to a laneway.
“We don’t want this to be three-bedroom, 2,000-square feet home behind a home, we want this to be a secondary suite, a smaller apartment,” Bailao said.
The existing zoning bylaw does not permit this kind of housing, which makes little sense since the city already allows basement apartments, she added.
Bailao hears from seniors living in Ward 18 (Davenport) who would consider having a laneway suite for their grown children who can’t afford to live nearby, but would like to “maintain the independence of a family.” It can also help homeowners struggling to pay mortgages.
Craig Race, an architect and co-founder of Lanescape, a citizens’ advocacy group working with the councillors, says previous attempts to bring laneway suites to Toronto have stalled because “people were imagining them as houses behind houses ... with servicing off the laneway.”
Proponents, including Evergreen CityWorks, are looking at Toronto adopting the Vancouver model, so the laneway suites cannot be severable or strata-titled and would get its services such as water and electricity from the main house.
“It’s basically like building a basement apartment but you’re putting it on top of your garage instead of your basement,” said Race.
Concerns about privacy can be addressed through guidelines, he said. For instance, Vancouver has limited the number of windows that can overlook the backyard side and require them to look over public space on laneway side, he explained.
Another obstacle to laneway suites in the past has been and the accessibility of emergency vehicles, Bailao said. For that reasons, emergency services are involved in the discussion.
“Fire already told us that the house has to be a certain distance from the front door so their equipment can get through to the back,” Bailao said.
An online survey, as well as local and city-wide consultations are planned to give a team of experts input to craft guidelines that will be presented to Toronto and East York Community council.
It will then be up to city planning staff to come up with an approvals framework so people can apply to build a laneway suite just like they would any normal building permit, Bailao said.
“We’re ensuring we’re doing it in a careful thoughtful way and we’re being proactive by creating these guidelines.”
A city-wide consultation will be held Dec. 5 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Evergreen Brick Works, BMO Atrium, 550 Bayview Avenue.
