An image from a planning document shows the layout for 162 Arlington Ave. The plans show a three-storey home on a narrow lot with an apartment tucked into the rear half of the basement. It was approved as a duplex with minor revisions by the Committee of Adjustment.Supplied
The City of Toronto’s multiplex bylaw was designed to increase the city’s stock of affordable housing, but critics say some builders are “weaponizing” the rules to build even larger luxury “monster homes.”
In September, local planning expert Blair Scorgie of the Scorgie Planning consulting firm warned the city’s Committee of Adjustment that its rules were twisted into absurdity ahead of a September hearing about a luxury home redevelopment at 162 Arlington Ave.
“The applicant is intentionally contravening the intent of the zoning bylaw, and specifically, the definition of a duplex, to develop a single detached dwelling at a scale and intensity that would not otherwise be achievable,” his letter reads. “The proposed development incorporates an accessory dwelling unit, not a duplex. It is situated within, and subordinate to, the primary dwelling unit.”
Luxury home builders often try to squeeze as much buildable space as possible out of a given property, but there are zoning rules about setbacks from neighbours, maximum height and even something called the floor-space index (FSI) that says how much living space an intended building can have. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Mr. Scorgie explained that the multiplex bylaw allows duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes anywhere in the city. To make it easier to build them the bylaw also gives them extra permissions to be taller, closer and with a higher FSI than single-family homes are allowed in most areas.
According to the website of the developer of 162 Arlington – Tapasvi Vinarula of Terrasky Development Group – the company adds value in the following way: “Creative additions will provide extra space within allowed city zoning.”
The plans show a three-storey home on a narrow lot with an apartment tucked into the rear half of the basement; it was approved as a duplex with minor revisions by the Committee of Adjustment.
Other recently completed Terrasky homes in the area were listed for sale without completed basement apartments, with their kitchens described only as “roughed in.” The company did not respond to requests for comment.
“What I’m seeing are basement suites with a walkout in the back, or you walk through a shared space that’s part of the primary unit,” said Mr. Scorgie. A true duplex, he said, consists of separate homes, not a small home tucked inside a larger one: “You wouldn’t expect to have to walk through someone’s basement rec room to get to a second unit,” said Mr. Scorgie.
Mr. Scorgie said he is in favour of the multiplex bylaw’s intention to add density to the city’s neighbourhoods, but said permissive interpretation of such faux-duplexes by city staff could have the effect of undermining support for true multiplexes if the system is gamed to produce McMansions instead.
“They are supposed to provide gentle density,” he said. “But we’re doing monster houses. The risk is they weaponize these regulations: Staff are being told to take the applicant at their word, no one is reviewing it, they are all passing the buck to someone else.”
The flip side of the multiplex bylaw is staff interpretations that some say are overly restrictive. In recent months staff have taken to recommending against approval of fourplexes in some cases where they are being built next to another fourplex, suggesting that even legally separate structures are, in fact, one eight-unit apartment building.
Planner Sean Galbraith called these varying interpretations “utterly perplexing” and suggested city staffers who approve monster house-duplexes or block fourplexes as apartments are missing the point of the multiplex reforms passed as part of the Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods program.
“Clearly the intent of the EHON exercise was to allow townhouse fourplexes,” he said. “Maybe one day the entire city will be aligned to generate housing.”
Experts in the operation of planning departments say that in some ways it’s a familiar push and pull when changes are made to planning rules.
“I don’t think nanny suites were the aspirations of the bylaw,” said Samantha Eby, director for ReHousing, a non-profit organization focused on getting housing creation. “There’s no possibility for the zoning to 100 per cent to work in the way it was intended in every single lot. Everyone is just stumbling along trying to figure it out at this point, and there are cracks.”
It’s a position echoed by Graig Uens, director of planning with Batory Management, who was a leader in Toronto’s planning department when it was formulating elements of the EHON agenda. “Planning writes the bylaws, they get interpreted by the building department. That might not align with what people thought,” said Mr. Uens. “It’s an iterative project over the last couple years. … It’s a living process as the city learns.”
The city though isn’t planning on making any changes to its approach until at least 2025 according to a statement issued by the planning department: “We are currently collecting data and monitoring the implementation of multiplexes city-wide, with the intent of reporting back to the planning and housing committee in the summer of 2025 with recommendations for improvements.”