Last week, the City of Toronto released “pre-approved” plans for laneway homes. Architect Toon Dreesen digs deeper into what’s wrong with the City’s approach.
No one denies that there is a housing crisis, whether it is for affordable housing or housing affordability, we need more housing built that is attainable, sustainable, and helps improve our quality of life.
Last week, the City of Toronto released “pre-approved” plans for laneway homes. This is, on the surface, a nice idea. but let’s dig a little deeper.
Laneway homes are only ever going to be a niche approach to tacking the housing crisis. Since 2021, only about 200 permits have been issued; only six have been built in the last two years. They are also marketed, in some contexts, as an investment vehicle. An investor driven real estate market has been partly responsible for some of the stratospheric growth in real estate prices over the last few years.
It was disappointing to hear Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow say, “The pre-approved plans are compliant with the Ontario Building Code and eliminate the need to hire an architect.” This suggests that Mayor Chow thinks that architects are responsible for both delays in getting building permits and that we add costs to a project, making them unaffordable.
Architects add value to projects: we de-risk projects and help solve problems. We address problems on paper before they become problems in the field, resolving questions that allow a homeowner to obtain their building permit, helping them navigate the complexity of planning approvals.
The “pre-approved” plans offer a few options and different layouts depending on access for firefighting. But they still need to be customized to suit a site: they don’t consider the placement of existing trees, or how a site might be sloped or have poor soil conditions.