Goodbye yellowbelt: Toronto council says multiplexes can be built citywide

Neighbourhoods will no longer be preserved for single-family homes, as new rules allow for up to four units on a single lot -- or five, if it’s large enough for a laneway or garden suite.

Thestar.com
May 11, 2023
Victoria Gibson

Say goodbye to the Toronto rules that have preserved huge cuts of the map for single-family houses.

Toronto councillors, on Wednesday afternoon, voted to heed the recommendations of chief planner Gregg Lintern and allow multiplex housing citywide -- meaning duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes can be built, without special permissions, in neighbourhoods from Rosedale to Westmount that are currently dominated by detached and semi-detached houses.

The decision is an upheaval of Toronto’s long-standing “yellowbelt” -- the roughly 70 per cent of Toronto’s zoned residential land that has been restricted to single-family homes only. That rule system has led to concentrated growth -- leaving the city skyline sharp and jagged, with neighbourhoods dominated by either low-slung houses or sky-high apartment towers.

For several years, city planners had been mulling a rethink of Toronto’s planning regime to add more “gentle density” -- housing options such as triplexes and fourplexes -- where single homes dominate. Their final proposal was approved by council in an 18-7 vote.

“It’s not a panacea to all of our housing issues and challenges, but I think we have to pull as many levers as we can as a city,” Lintern told council, fielding questions from impacts on the city’s tree canopy to parking availability. The idea, he said, was to have more range in housing citywide, “so that people aren’t feeling that they don’t have a choice to live everywhere.”

The hours-long debate in the council chambers saw some elected officials argue the overhauls were a step too far, could inflate land prices if builders saw an opportunity to buy and demolish single houses to build multiplexes, or would upset residents of suburban areas. Others rebutted that Toronto desperately needs more housing -- lest people be forced to leave the city where they’ve grown up -- and that multiplexes were a good option for multi-generational families.

The new framework, as approved on Wednesday, allows new multiplexes to be built up to 10 metres high, or three storeys, as long as the design keeps with an area’s existing “physical features.” In areas where taller buildings are already allowed, four-storey multiplexes may be possible, the new rules say -- and where the lot is large enough, the rules allow a multiplex abutting a garden or laneway suite. That would total five residential units on larger lots.

Those rules go a step further than the changes mandated by the province last year through Bill 23, which required cities to allow a minimum of three residential units on any property.

Lintern’s proposal sparked significant debate at the city’s planning and housing committee two weeks ago, with staff saying they received more than 1,000 submissions in response to the proposal -- 633 expressions of support and 401 expressions of concern. Another two-dozen people turned out to speak at the meeting, with 16 in favour and eight opposed to the changes.

In approving the new rules, the city has vowed to monitor its impacts, and deliver a report back to the city hall housing committee with any needed tweaks -- which Lintern initially proposed to deliver by early 2026, but was adjusted through a motion from Coun. Lily Cheng (Ward 18, Willowdale) to delivery upon issuance of the first 200 multiplex building permits, if sooner.

City staff are also expected to advance further policy changes in the coming years to boost density, starting with a final set of recommendations on allowing four- to six-storey walk-up apartments on major streets in residential areas, which staff expect to release later in 2023.

Lintern, in council Wednesday as well as in his final multiplex report, said one driving factor in revisiting the city’s planning rules was the declining populations of certain Toronto neighbourhoods, leaving infrastructure such as local parks and schools “underused.” That trend has shown up in census data -- as neighbourhoods such as Mount Pleasant West have seen booming population growth, others such as Trinity Bellwoods have been shrinking.

But as planners have expressed hope of opening up more neighbourhoods to those who cannot afford a single-family home, the question of affordability still looms. Cheryll Case, executive director of CP Planning and a member of a city roundtable on expanding housing, warned last month that without “dedicated policies” to create affordable units, the multiplex rules were unlikely to increase housing supply for the city’s lower- or even moderate-income households.

Targeted policies could include subsidies, or priority timelines for development approval, if a multiplex owner entered an agreement with the city to provide affordable housing, Case said.

On Wednesday, multiple councillors put that question to Lintern, who conceded the multiplex overhaul would not create “capital-A affordable” homes -- noting that with other density efforts like allowing laneway suites, the city had seen “minor pickup” of incentives for affordable units.

(Though laneway suits were greenlit by council in 2018, there had only been 238 applications to build them by late 2021, the Star has reported, and only nine enrolled in an affordability pilot.)

Still, the majority of councillors voted in favour of a motion from Coun. Mike Colle (Ward 8, Eglinton-Lawrence) asking senior city staff to report back at a later date on the feasibility of an incentive program to make one of four units in a multiplex affordable to either rent or buy.

“It’s actually increasing the supply, the choice, the opportunity for housing,” Lintern said of the city’s goals, also noting the chance for multi-generational living. “That’s what this is about.”