More housing could soon be built in Toronto's gardens and laneways.
In late September, the Ford government unveiled a new regulatory proposal that would do away with many restrictions cities like Toronto impose on garden and laneway suites. The five-point proposal would help make building these innovative forms of housing — often called secondary suites or accessory dwelling units — easier and cheaper.
The province is considering completely overriding all municipal rules that apply to garden and laneway suites concerning angular planes, floor space index, and minimum lot size. The proposal would also allow secondary suites to be built as close as four metres away from the main residence and all buildings to cover up to 45 per cent of a single lot.
Taken together, the changes will “make for simpler construction, and it'll make for better living units inside,” said Sean Galbraith, a Toronto-based urban planner.
Graig Uens, director of planning at Batory Management, led the laneway suite program during his time working for the city. He said eliminating these rules will put more bedrooms in secondary units, which will “be helpful in building more family-sized rental accommodations.”
Laneway and garden suites are often touted as non-controversial — at least when compared to more ambitious policies like allowing fourplex apartments on any street — ways to help get more “missing middle” housing in Toronto.
Laneway suites were legalized in 2018 and garden suites followed in 2022. Uptake has been slow.
Since 2018, the city has received 772 applications to build laneway suites while 235 have been built, according to City of Toronto data.
Since 2022, there have been 561 applications for garden suites, with just 48 built.
Getting rid of angular planes and limiting the separation distance to a maximum of four metres are the most significant changes, Galbraith said.
Angular planes are bylaws that lead to the creation of ziggurat-looking buildings. The thinking behind them is that instead of having all the floors of a building right up at the edge of a lot, successive floors are pushed back to cut down on shadows and provide more privacy. It’s the reason why many buildings in Toronto and other municipalities resemble a staircase when they reach a certain height.
Angular plane rules don’t just apply to tall buildings. Toronto’s garden suite bylaw and laneway suite bylaw usually require 45-degree angular planes starting at four metres.
In the context of secondary suites, angular planes make it difficult to build a second storey where people — especially families — can actually live. Instead of a traditional rectangular room with four walls of equal height and a flat ceiling connecting them, the ceiling starts to angle at a particular height, creating a triangular shape. This makes the corners of the room shorter.
Toronto’s original laneway suite bylaw didn’t have angular plane rules, Uens said. Those came later after complaints from resident groups. Now, angular planes are required on the side of the laneway suite facing the house, but not on the side facing the laneway.
This new provincial rule “might get you a second bedroom instead of just one bedroom. It might even get you a third bedroom,” he said. “Angular plane provisions really make it hard to do a cost-effective, well-laid-out second floor. And so this is going to help with that.”
“It shifts the priority from minor shadow impacts on a couple neighbouring properties to prioritizing having functional living space for the occupants of the garden suite or laneway suite. The difference is a shift in philosophy. It recognizes that the impacts on neighbouring properties are actually quite negligible in terms of shadow and we shouldn't be protecting for them,” Galbraith said.
Some municipalities — like Toronto — have specific rules on how far a secondary suite has to be from the main house. This can pose a big problem for people who want to build secondary units on smaller lots, Uens said.
Toronto’s laneway and garden suite bylaws require a secondary suite to be at least five metres from the main building if the secondary suite is less than four metres tall. If the secondary suite is bigger than four metres, it needs to be at least 7.5 metres from the main residence.
The province wants to limit that distance to four metres.
Uens recently had a proposal for a five-metre separation go to the city’s planning and housing committee. City staff didn’t support it, he said.
“This is a material change that will help people on more shallow lots build laneway and garden suites,” he said, which is particularly helpful in denser urban areas.
Separation distance bylaws are intended to help create privacy, Uens said, but in most cases it’s overblown.
“Now that I've seen a lot of these built, you don't really create a lot of privacy and overlook issues in an urban environment that don't already exist when you have a smaller setback,” he said.