WELCOME TO YOUR FUTURE HOME

Net-zero buildings. Car-free neighbourhoods. Rooftop farms. Smart-home everything. An optimist’s guide to the totally green, actually affordable, Jetsonesque near-future of Toronto real estate

- ALEX CYR, MATHEW SILVER AND ANDREA YU

TORONTO'S REAL ESTATE game has been feeling pretty grim. The list of problems is long, bleak and all too real. Rents are skyrocketing. Home ownership feels increasingly out of reach. The city desperately needs more housing options, but where and what kind? Meanwhile, large-scale construction is expensive and environmentally fraught. Solutions and action-seem to be in short supply. In light of these realities, it's easy to be pessimistic.

And yet, there are also reasons for optimism. The new Mirvish Village, which will be ready this year, is a master class in community-building, with more than one-third of its units designated as affordable housing. Waterfront Toronto finally has a plan to fix the city's saddest stretch of shoreline, and it includes a one-acre rooftop farm, a new arts venue and a mini forest. Jennifer Keesmaat is back in Toronto, and her firm is creating a leafy, car-free neighbourhood in North York. Partisans, one of the city's buzziest architecture firms, has plans to stop urban sprawl by turning a small town north of the city into a transit-friendly sci-fi utopia.

All across the GTA, such projects give hope amid the gloom. In the pages ahead, we preview some of the coolest developments, most-sustainable living spaces and smartest home tech. Get ready for the nearly here future of Toronto real estate.

A NEW WATERFRONT 
Quayside will transform the city's shoreline
Projected first occupancy in 2030; construction complete in 2035

WATERFRONT TORONTO