It’s been many years now since Laneway Housing was approved in the City of Toronto. Here’s our post About Laneway Housing In Toronto By Urbaneer & Sustainable. We’re now awaiting word on when Garden Suites will be officially approved, once all the mitigating factors expressed by stakeholders have been assessed, addressed, and, as required, integrated into the new Garden Suite By-laws. The process is already underway, including an important public consultation process.

Until that is complete, here is the first DRAFT policy – a 52-page report from Toronto’s City Planning Department – delivered to the Planning & Housing Committee which you can access and download here. A final draft still has to be enacted (so you can’t build a Garden Suite yet!), but, in the meantime, here’s a synopsis on the proposal, provided by The Architect Builders Collaborative and my longtime friend and client, Paul Dowsett, of Sustainable.  It summarizes our need-to-know details for Garden Suites in Toronto!

• DEFINING A Garden Suite:
  • The proposed definition of a Garden Suite is as follows:

Garden Suite means: “a self-contained living accommodation for a person or persons living together as a separate single housekeeping unit, in which both food preparation and sanitary facilities are provided for the exclusive use of the occupants of the suite and is in an ancillary building not abutting a lane.”

• NUMBER Of Allowed Apartments:
  • Only 1 dwelling unit will be permitted in a stand-alone garden suite building.

• WHERE You Can Buy A Garden Suite:
  • All forms of Residential zoning in all Wards, but NOT all properties will meet the various rules
  • The regulations recognize that not all lots may be able to support a Garden Suite and acknowledge that where larger lots may accommodate a larger suite, setbacks and step backs should increase proportionately to adequately limit impacts on adjacent properties. In practice, the proposed standards intend that the size and setbacks of a Garden Suite are relative to the lot on which it is located.
  • Only in the rear yard, not in the side or front yards
    • So far there is no mention of corner lots
  • At least 5m away from your main house
    • 7.5m apart for 2 storey garden suites
  • Minimum 1.5m from the rear lot line
  • Minimum 0.6m from the side lot lines (and possibly further away on larger lots)
    • Min. 1.5m from side lot lines if you have windows or doors in the side wall

• HOW BIG A Garden Suite Can Be:
  • Up to 60m² [645 sq.ft.] footprint
  • Maximum lot coverage of 40% of the rear yard, and
  • Maximum 25% lot coverage for all ancillary buildings combined
  • All 3 limits apply

       *** Addendum Nov 2024 – New Province Of Ontario Regulations Reducing Setbacks

The new regulations apply all across the province, and supercede any municipal rules for the items it covers. 

Most importantly, the new rules say the garden suite (or laneway house) now only needs to be placed a minimum 4m (13.1 feet) from the existing home, not for example the 5m or 7.5m (24.6 feet) called for in Toronto.

So ABOVE, we have a couple of examples.  The upper in each (house #1) is a larger lot, the lower (house #2) is a smaller, or at least a shallower lot, one that is not so deep.

House #1 – under the current rules, the garden suite must be set back 7.5m.  But under the new rules, although in the above #1 example the garden suite is the same size under the old rules and the new ones, there is now more room for some extra backyard, behind the garden suite.

House #2 – this is a smaller lot, and under the old rules, there was not enough backyard for a reasonable-sized garden suite.  But under the new rules, the garden suite can be much larger.

(Thanks to Marty from LanewayHousingAdvisors)

• HOW HIGH A Garden Suite Can Be:
  • Up to 6m [19′-8″] tall and 2 storeys high (subject to angular plane restrictions – see below)

• About BASEMENTS In Garden Suites:
  • Yes, you can build a basement
  • BUT – basements can be costly if your site conditions will require shoring.

• All About ANGULAR PLANES:
  • These pesky, imaginary lines limit how tall the building can be when it is close to a lot line. If you build further back from the lot lines, then you may be allowed to build straight up to the maximum height.
  • Front wall: 45 degrees starting at a height of 4.0m, 7.5m from the rear main wall of the main house. This is the same as the rules for laneway suites.
  • Rear wall: 45 degrees starting at a height of 2.0m, from the rear lot line
  • Side walls: 45 degrees starting at a height of 4.0m from the required side setback

** Addendum Nov 2024 – New Province Of Ontario Regulations Removing Angular Plane Requirements

Until these new regulations, some builds ran into what are called 45-degree “angular planes” on the upper level of a 2-level build (usually the top 1/3 of the structure). 

See the RED ARROWS above.

These made for difficult room layouts, especially for bathrooms and kitchens. The regulation change means angular plane rules no longer apply, the build can have traditional vertical walls, right up to the roof-line.

(Thanks to Marty from LanewayHousingAdvisors)

• LANDSCAPING & Garden Suites:
  • The requirements for soft landscaping have bedeviled many laneway suite proposals. The proposed rules for Garden Suites seem a little easier to comply with:
  • A minimum of 50% of a rear yard area, including the area covered by a Garden Suite, must be soft landscaping. Lots with a frontage of less than 6.0 metres will require a minimum of 25% soft landscaping.

• GREEN ROOFS As ‘Soft Landscaping’
  • The proposed rules recognize that a Green Roof can provide many of the same benefits as soft landscaping at grade.
  • As a result, the above soft landscaping requirement may be reduced by 0.5 square metres for every 1.0 square metres of green roof provided on a Garden Suite.

• PARKING Requirements For Garden Suites
  • The proposed draft Garden Suites regulations do not require any vehicle parking space for a Garden Suite and maintain the required parking rates for the main house on the lot.
  • Watch out for the need to have clear access for fire-fighters that cannot pass through a parking space such as up a narrow driveway.

• About EXISTING Buildings
  • In order to facilitate the conversion of existing ancillary structures to provide living space, the conversion of a lawfully existing building to a Garden Suite, such as a garage or shed, is proposed to be permitted if it complies with the maximum footprint (60 m²), setbacks where openings are proposed, and meets the minimum required soft landscaped area.

• About EMERGENCY Access:
  • Similar to the rules for Laneway Suites, Toronto Fire Services will have a policy that the Building Department can use to determine if a proposed Garden Suite will meet their standards for access in an emergency.
  • The draft rules require a maximum 45m path of travel from the street to the door of the Garden Suite. That path must be free of obstructions for the full length at 1.0m wide and 2.1m high.
  • We expect that similar to Laneway Suites, this access may be able to be shared with a neighbour subject to a Limiting Distance Agreement.

• TREES, TREES, TREES:
  • We expect that Council will follow the path they blazed with Laneway Suites and encourage Urban Forestry to refuse applications to remove healthy mature trees for the sake of building a Garden Suite.

• GREEN DESIGN 
  • This is a stand alone topic in the report. Although the report mentions the City’s goals of sustainability, there are no concrete recommendations to help achieve them. The City is limited in the tools at their disposal as the Ontario Building Code sets the minimum standards for energy efficiency and makes no mention whatsoever about the really important thing – the amount of carbon it takes to make any particular building. We’re engaging the City to mandate that Net Zero Energy ready homes are the way to go to fight climate change! Here’s Urbaneer’s post –> Hello Toronto, Ontario, Canada! Make Your Home A ‘Net Zero’ Hero.

… And that’s our summary!

“Are there any pre-approved designs for Garden Suites?”

This is really exciting! City staff are taking a serious look at the example of cities like Seattle and Santa Clara who have held design competitions to have a series of pre-approved designs for Garden Suites available through a City website. We fully support this idea to make building a beautiful Garden Suite easier provided that all such designs be ‘Net Zero Energy’ and low-carbon design.

Of course, you don’t need to wait for the City to figure this out – The Architect Builders Collaborative has some beautiful ready-to-build Garden Suite designs for when the bylaws come into effect in 2022!

We’re proud that our City continues to adapt, evolve, and better itself, thanks to the vision and hard work of Torontonians. Our journey toward better land use is a long one, but well underway! Read more here: Garden Suites & Expanding Housing Options In Neighbourhoods Initiative.