STREET FIGHT

If this city stands any chance of solving the housing crisis, it will need multiplexes in residential neighbourhoods—a move that has many residents saying, “Anywhere but here!”

- JOHN SEMLEY

CITY COUNCIL'S big swing came in May of 2023. As North America's fastest-growing metropolis, Toronto desperately needed more housing—and a lot more variety in that housing—if it was going to accommodate existing residents and absorb the more than 250,000 people moving into the city annually.

The problem: Toronto has single-family homes hogging prime square footage on residential streets. It has condos and apartment towers dominating some of the more densely populated areas. What's missing is a middle option: low-rise walk-up buildings with multiple units—a form of housing that was popular here in the mid-20th century but has fallen out of favour. So, after more than three years of holding public forums, hosting meetings and analyzing survey results, council finally voted: yes, it would allow new duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes to be built across Toronto and, crucially, in single-family strongholds like High Park, Rosedale and the Beaches.

The initiative was part of a larger push called Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods. The idea was to encourage gentle forms of density by allowing mixed residential and retail along major streets and making it easier to build laneway houses, garden suites, stacked townhouses and multiplexes in established residential areas. In zoning parlance, these buildings could now be erected “as of right,” meaning they complied with new building codes and zoning bylaws and could be approved instantaneously, cutting down on irritating delays. Within 18 months, 452 multiplex permits were issued, netting 726 new housing units. It was a small but necessary step in a city where the vacancy rate sits at a mere three per cent (five to seven per cent is considered healthy for an urban centre).