Boxier midrise apartments could soon come to Toronto’s streets after city staff proposed changing rules that forced developers to construct apartments above a certain height to resemble staircases, where successive floors are pushed back.
The changes are a “major improvement” on past policies that will allow developers to use “lower-cost construction techniques” and make buildings more energy efficient because “boxier buildings are easier to build and insulate,” said Chris Spoke, a partner at midrise developer Toronto Standard.
“These changes aim to simplify construction, make buildings more economical to construct, and enhance sustainability in mid-rise developments,” which allows for “greater density” and “increased affordability,” staff said in a report on the topic.
The proposed changes will go before the city’s planning and housing committee next Thursday. The committee would need to approve the new rules and send them to full council for final sign-off at its mid-December meeting before they become the law of the land.
Beaches-East York Coun. Brad Bradford celebrated the proposed building design reforms, which he asked staff to draft at the planning and housing committee’s November meeting.
“I’m very happy that staff have reported back with changes that take a big step in the right direction. We are finally eliminating the nonsensical and inefficient angular planes — and good riddance,” he said in a statement to TorontoToday on Thursday.
“We need to make it easier, faster, and more affordable to build the housing we need. These updated guidelines should help, and I look forward to hearing what else can be done in the future to get more midrises built.”
If approved, the new rules would allow most midrise apartments to be built six stories straight up from the ground before the city forces the upper storeys to be recessed. After a step back at the sixth storey, developers could go up another five storeys.
Midrise apartments vary in height across the city but are generally capped at 11 storeys on the widest streets. They’re shorter on narrower streets.
Toronto’s existing midrise rules generally require successive stepbacks after 7.5 metres, which usually works out to recessing after two storeys.
In practice, the changes mean midrise apartments will look more like a two-tier wedding cake. Currently, the rules make buildings look like staircases, or ziggurats, the ancient Mesopotamian temples that predated Egyptian pyramids.
The rationale behind the current angular plane policy is to allow more sunlight onto the street and create a more gentle transition between taller apartments and the low-rise housing that is common in many neighbourhoods.
However, the rules often conflict with the city’s goal of building more housing to address affordability concerns. The city’s design review panel, a group of building experts who advise on development matters, said “requiring additional stepbacks for upper storeys unnecessarily complicates building design with little benefit on the public realm.”
City council made a similar change during its November meeting but it only applied to major avenues. The new proposal would apply city-wide.
The report also recommends allowing up to 14-storey midrise apartments on 45-metre wide streets.
Only a few Toronto streets — including Lake Shore Avenue, parts of University Avenue, Allen Road and stretches of Eglinton Avenue West — are that wide, so the proposed change won’t have much impact, Spoke said.
On most of those streets, building midrise doesn’t make a ton of sense because of technical issues or because they’re already zoned for highrise buildings, he added.
The only places he thinks the proposed changes could make a difference are on stretches of Lakeshore or Eglinton.
