From Toronto Storeys:
Before 2018, laneway houses and suites were pretty hard to come by in Toronto. City planning bylaws heavily favoured single-family developments, which made building them a logistical nightmare.
Laneway housing, or laneway suites, are separate, detached dwellings that are built on the rear side of a property of a detached house, semi-detached house, townhouse, or other low-rise houses next to a public laneway and are generally smaller in size and completely detached from the main house on the lot.
With over two thousand underutilized laneways throughout the city, not to mention the need for more affordable housing options, Toronto passed a bylaw in 2018 to make laneway suites easier for developers to build.
There are, of course, still building restrictions, not to mention difficulties obtaining financing. As such, there are still not as many laneway suites constructed in the city. However, a Toronto homeowner built a beautiful laneway house with a self-contained suite behind their renovated semi-detached home in Christie Pits that recently sold to a very fortunate buyer.
Located at 1067 Shaw Street, the fully renovated two-storey home plus its new laneway house with a contained suite just sold for $2,365,000 ($566,000 over asking) in a bidding war. And while this might seem like a steep price to pay, when you take a look inside, you’ll understand why.