Fresh eyes on Toronto’s laneway houses: A clarion call too loud to ignore

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It’s like Darwinism, but expedited. That’s what it’s like watching laneway houses in the city of Toronto.

First, there were pioneers Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe, an architect couple who faced fierce objections from the city when they attempted to build a laneway house in the early 1990s, eventually winning at the Ontario Municipal Board. Then came the early-adopters of the late-1990s and early-2000s, who still had to fight for their right to build. By the mid- to late-2000s, city hall began to examine its antiquated policies (and loosen them up for a while), which allowed more adventurous people to embrace the back alley.

But real change didn’t come until 2013: architect Craig Race asked then-city councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon why this type of housing was so wrapped in red tape while, in laid-back Vancouver, it was pretty breezy. The two then assembled a crack team that included then-councillor Ana Bailão and the non-profit group Evergreen and, by 2018, the laneway house finally became “as-of-right” (meaning no arguing one’s case before a tribunal). In 2022, the garden suite – no laneway required – was given that same designation. And almost immediately, new businesses that claimed to be experts in laneway and garden suites popped up like mushrooms.

It has been exhilarating. And with the current housing shortage, completely necessary. But it feels as if a sameness has already crept in. With height restrictions, angular setbacks, window limitations and a dozen other regulations, creativity seems limited to cladding.

Maybe we need fresh eyes.

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Enter architect Tom Knezic of Solares Architecture, lawyer and adviser John Leddy and contractor Matt Molloy, a dream team if ever there was one. When Mr. Leddy purchased a 2 1/2-storey, detached investment property on Fairview Avenue in Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood near the end of 2019, he hired Solares to renovate it.

While solid, it had the usual problems, says Mr. Knezic: a low basement. The finishes “needed work.” And, he says, it would have been difficult to divide the property into two units because “things weren’t in the right place.” In addition, a small, older addition at the back would need to be demolished to provide enough distance to legally build a laneway house.

There was another, much stranger wrinkle: “There’s a weird bylaw here that the total interior floor area of the laneway house has to be less than the total gross floor of the main house,” he says. This meant the laneway house would have had to be ridiculously small.

“So, we added a third storey,” he recalls with a laugh. “It’s hard to understand what the rationale was, exactly. … Nobody standing here looking at this knows that this [laneway house] is 49 per cent total internal floor area of the gross floor area of [the main house].”

The story gets more complicated, but, thankfully, less Byzantine.

The team decided the new laneway house should have a basement. That was complicated by the height restrictions, which meant they would need to dig fairly deep – and would need the co-operation of the homeowners on either side. Unfortunately, the team was only able to secure one ally.

So, just as Solares was creating a workaround, Mr. Leddy and Mr. Molloy purchased one of the neighbouring houses. And, just like that, the problem vanished and Solares went back to their virtual drafting tables to create two semi-detached laneway houses.

“By sticking them together, you’re actually able to get a bigger [laneway] house for, I think, less cost because there are two less exterior walls,” says Mr. Knezic. He points to the neighbour’s property line: “We’re further away from here, and we have a carve out here.” With a wider lot, the team could pinch the house a little on either side and, by adding two carve outs – cantilevering the second storey over two sheltered parking spaces – the laneway portion of the building sits even further from neighbouring lot lines. One parking pad includes an electric car charging station.

Those carve outs also make for an interesting – and not the same old, same old – laneway building. In fact, with its visually heavy top, the bold, muscular, brick-clad building resembles a hammerhead shark.

“John challenges us,” says Mr. Knezic, “because it was never meant to be a brick building.”

“We just wanted something different,” says Mr. Leddy. “We didn’t want a tin box and it was consistent with the neighbourhood.”

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And because the first house sits on a 30-foot-wide lot, and the second on a 20-foot lot, stepping inside these laneway houses dispels preconceived notions that a laneway house equals a tiny house. The larger of the two sports 1,555 square feet over two floors, and a basement of 737 square feet; the smaller unit has 1,022 square feet above grade and an additional 455 below. Both sport kitchen islands that are luxuriously long, premium finishes, large bathrooms and the larger unit boasts a walk-in closet for the primary bedroom.

While it would have been nice to go fully electric with the five units that have been created (two in one main house, one in the other and two semi laneway houses), it was next to impossible, so not all units have induction stoves and some dryers are gas-fed. There is, however, a 12 kilowatt solar array on the roof of the larger laneway house and a 6.5 kilowatt array on the smaller one, both tied into the grid.

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“Probably 95 per cent of the energy is electric,” says Mr. Knezic, “but when you really need that oomph in the peak, then the gas comes on.”

“And 25 per cent of that 95 per cent is solar,” says Mr. Molloy.

Numbers aside, these two semis are a clarion call: be greener; be more creative; add basements; ask the neighbour if he or she wants to partner in order to create a pair of semis; and continue to challenge the city on Byzantine bylaws that limit what’s possible.