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Throughout April UrbanToronto is featuring a special State of Environment editorial series to explore critical sustainability issues across our region.
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The land area of the City of Toronto covers 631 square kilometres, and of that, fully 17 per cent is made up of ravines. Of major metropolitan areas in North America, that is an impressive total, as few such cities can match something as large as the Don Valley stretching north to south through the urban core for example.
It takes smart, sustainable urban planning to maintain and preserve Toronto’s green space during a time of urban intensification, and one of the four actionable goals of the City’s Official Plan is to be a sustainable resilient city: Toronto is to reach net zero and become more resilient to climate change by smart land use planning decisions, infrastructure investments, extensive transit and cycling networks, and restored biodiversity, including Indigenous views on land protection.
“Sustainability is a fundamental component of smart urban planning,” said the City of Toronto’s Shayna Stott, Senior Planner, Environmental Planning, City Planning Division, noting it has the biggest impact in three key areas. “First, it creates complete communities that provide people with housing and transportation options that use resources more efficiently. Secondly, it protects and grows the tree canopy and natural areas within the city, and thirdly, it brings forth policies and standards that help integrate sustainable design and materials into the development market, such as the Toronto Green Standard.”
As part of the Plan, the City now takes a ‘gentle density in neighbourhoods’ approach, which generally describes the redevelopment of low-density neighbourhoods with higher density 'missing middle' housing forms that generally fit within the scale and physical character of existing residential buildings and houses, such as laneway and garden suites, multiplexes, and low-rise apartment buildings.
While most citizens are aware of the Greenbelt which surrounds the City, fewer may be aware of Toronto’s 'Yellowbelt,' which covers most of the central, stable, older residential areas. Coined by urban planner Gil Meslin in 2016, for years, zoning had put a cap on significant redevelopment of the Yellowbelt, nearly as restrictive as what is applied to protected green space.
But the City has made amendments to its Yellowbelt approach and is continuing tweaks to accommodate the realities of city growth and the need for more housing with the Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods (EHON) initiative. As explained by Carola Perez-Book, Project Manager, Zoning, City Planning division, the amendments are to permit and facilitate more low-rise housing in residential neighbourhoods to meet the needs of a growing city, specifically when it comes to Laneway Suites, Garden Suites, Multiplexes and Sixplexes. It also covers changes to policies regarding major streets and neighbourhood retail.
“EHON is an initiative that reframes the way we think about our low-rise communities,” says Perez-Book. “These neighbourhoods are Toronto’s opportunity to welcome more equitable access to small-scale, ground-related housing to meet the needs of current and future residents. Allowing for additional units in multiplex building types, with the same general scale and built form characteristics, addresses Official Plan objectives to provide a wide range of housing types within our neighbourhoods of four storeys or less, in a way that is gradual and sensitive to their context.”
Major changes include permitting one laneway suite per residential lot that abuts a laneway city-wide, permitting one garden suite per residential lot that does not abut a laneway, permitting up to four units in a multiplex city-wide, and sixplexes, permitting up to six units in a multiplex in Ward 23 and Toronto and East York Districts. The amendments also permit townhouses and apartment buildings up to six storeys on major streets and permit small-scale retail, service and office uses in certain neighbourhoods city-wide.
“Each of the City’s EHON initiatives included a monitoring program to assess the implementation and effectiveness of these amendments,” says Perez-Book. “Staff will report back on the monitoring outcomes and any necessary revisions to permissions, or other changes to improve the implementation and facilitate construction will be made. Reports on Multiplex and Garden Suite monitoring were adopted by City Council last summer. Monitoring for the Multiplexes, major streets and neighbourhood retail initiatives is ongoing, and additional changes could be recommended through future reports.”
As Toronto changes, grows and expands, sustainable, smart urban planning must stay flexible to provide a city of complete communities in making the most of those 631 square kilometres.
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UrbanToronto's research and data service, UTPro, provides comprehensive data on construction projects in the Greater Golden Horseshoe—from proposal through to completion. Other services include Instant Reports, downloadable snapshots based on location, and a daily subscription newsletter, New Development Insider, that tracks projects from initial application.
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