A new proposal by Innstead Co-operative Housing Inc. seeks to bring a 6-storey co-op building to the northeast corner of Coxwell Avenue and Gerrard Street East on the east side of Toronto. Located at 355 Coxwell Avenue, this mixed-use project includes a total of 33 residential units, in addition to one retail unit on the ground floor, with a ground floor area of 455 m2 and an FSI of 2.65. Featuring a design by LGA Architectural Partners, the tower rises 24 m/79 ft in height including mechanical penthouse, maintaining a 1:1 ratio with the width of both intersecting streets.

355 Coxwell Ave., view looking north-east; image retrieved from City of Toronto planning documents.

The 33 residential units will be comprised of 7 studio apartments, 21 one-bedroom apartments, and 5 two-bedroom apartments, with units ranging from 32.8 m2/353 ft2 to 77.32 m2/832 ft2 in size. A total of nine parking spaces will be provided, in addition to a bicycle storage room in the basement level. In the nature of resident cooperation, collaboration, and interaction that characterizes co-op housing developments, this building will feature shared solarium spaces on the second and fourth floors, a common room and co-op board offices on the sixth floor, and a shared terrace and green roof on the outdoor area of the top floor. 

As of current, the northeast corner of Coxwell and Gerrard is occupied by a one-storey retail plaza, a relic of a previous era of urban planning that allowed car-oriented development in rapidly-urbanizing inner suburbs containing mostly single-family homes. However, as the site is served by two TTC transit routes (the 506 Carlton streetcar and the 22 Coxwell bus), in addition to being in close proximity to Line 2 of the subway, it presents a valuable opportunity for revitalization and intensification of an under-utilized site in a low-rise neighbourhood that is not often the site of new developments.

Current view of 355 Coxwell Ave., view looking north-east; im Coxwell Avenue, looking north-east; image courtesy of Google Maps.

This proposal is funded through the City of Toronto's Open Door Program, an initiative that provides affordable housing developers with tax cuts, development fee exemptions, and an expedited approval process with the condition that units remain affordable for at least 25 years. This initiative, for which the City of Toronto has guaranteed $272 million in funds over the next five years, has already contributed to the funding of over 300 affordable ownership and rental units, and will aid the city in achieving its goals of delivering 10,000 affordable housing units by 2020.

Innstead Co-operative Housing Inc., the developer of this project, is a co-op housing provider with a history spanning over 40 years and 50 properties in Toronto's east end. Their planning rationale for 355 Coxwell lies in the need to provide adequate and accessible housing for an aging co-op member base who can no longer seek housing in the units offered by Innstead within detached and semi-detached houses in the neighbourhood. 

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What do you think of this proposal? Could co-op housing make a comeback, and thus have a significant impact in the city's affordable housing crisis? How can the city support the construction of such projects through its different programs and policies? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below, and join the conversation in our associated Forum thread.