6 Storey High 60 Unit Apartment Building Along Major Streets in Toronto
The City of Toronto now permits townhouses and up to 6-storey high 60-unit rental apartment buildings on properties that are located along major streets and designated Neighbourhoods in the City of Toronto's Official Plan. Toronto City Council approved the Official Plan amendment and rezoning of major streets within the city’s residential neighborhoods that will permit rental apartment buildings of up to six storeys and sixty units.
Major streets in the City of Toronto including Adelaide, Albion, Avenue, Bathurst, Bayview, Bellamy, Bedford, Birchmount, Black Creek, Bloor, Brimley, Broadview, Brown's Line, Burnhamthorpe, Caledonia, Carlton, Church, College, Cosburn,, Coxwell, Danforth, Davenport, Dawes, Dixon, Donlands, Donmills, Dovercourt, Dufferin, Dundas, Dupont, East Mall, Eastern, Eglinton, Ellesmere, Evans, Finch, Gerrard, Greenwood, Guildwood, Harbord, Horner, Hoskin, Huntingwood,, Islington, Jane, Jarvis, Jones, Keele, Kennedy, King, Kingston, Kipling, Laird, Lake Shore, Landsowne, Lawrence, Leslie, Markham, McCowan, McNicoll, McLevin, Main, Martingrove, Meadowvale, Middlefield, Midland, Military Trail, Morningside, Mortimer, Mt. Pleasant, Neilson, O'Connor, Orton Park, Ossington, Overlea, Pape, Park Lawn, Parliament, Parkside, Pharmacy, Port Union, Pottery, Queen, Rathburn, Renforth, Richmond, Rogers, Roncessvalles, Rosedale Valley, Royal York, Runnymede, St. Clair, St. George, Scarborough Golf Club, Scarlett, Sheppard, Sherbourne, Shutter, South Kingsway, Spadina, Steeles, Tapscott, Tretheway, Vaughan, Victoria Park, Warden, Wellesley, Wellington, West Mall, Weston, Wilmington, Wilson, Woodbine, Yonge, York Mills are an opportunity for gentle intensification in Toronto’s Neighbourhoods. These major streets are identified on the City of Toronto's Official Plan Map 3. The major streets are important thoroughfares that cross long distances within Toronto. Some of the major streets are identified as Avenues in the City of Toronto's Official Plan, and benefit from intensification of both non-residential and residential uses in mid-rise built-form. However, the majority are major street segments located within Neighbourhoods and are not identified as Avenues. These non-Avenues portions of the major streets provide the opportunity to increase residential densities and height through the introduction of townhouses and small scale up to 6-storey high 60-unit apartment buildings that contextually transition to the Neighbourhoods by permitting a generally low-rise scale and building type.
The City of Toronto's planning initiatives and strategies to introduce land use permissions and low-rise “missing middle” buildings within designated Neighbourhoods that increase housing options in areas where land use permissions have limited intensification to provide a full range of housing options to Torontonians, in a form that makes efficient use of land, infrastructure, and existing services, continuing to contribute to increasing variety of housing permissions in Neighborhoods city-wide.
Toronto is predicted to continue to grow rapidly, with the anticipated addition of a minimum of 700,000 people by 2051. Nonetheless, many neighbourhoods across Toronto have experienced population decline. The majority of population growth has been directed to the Downtown, Centres, and Avenues, creating areas of high residential density and infrastructure challenges, while Neighbourhoods exhibit increasingly low density by comparison. Expanding permissions for a wider variety of residential buildings to be constructed in Toronto’s Neighbourhoods is intended to
diminish the difference between these two extremes of residential growth across the city. This expansion will add more people into neighbourhoods where existing infrastructure and services can be used more efficiently, and give more Torontonians access to live in low-rise neighbourhoods.
Allowing a broader variety of built forms such as townhouses and small-scale up to 6-storey high 30-unit apartment buildings along major streets is generally consistent with the Official Plan, which recognizes that while physical change within Neighbourhoods will be sensitive, gradual, and fit the existing context, major streets provide opportunities for additional density along the boundaries of these neighbourhoods. Providing land use permissions for a broader variety of built forms such as townhouses and small-scale up to 6-storey high 60-unit apartment buildings will provide a degree of height and density transition from growth areas to the interior of the Neighbourhoods, while maintaining a generally low-rise scale and aligning the additional density with transportation corridors and transit routes.
Small-scale residential apartment buildings of up to six storeys and sixty units are an important element in creating an inclusive, equitable, productive, and livable city that is sustainable.
City of Toronto - Zoning Provisions for Small-scale Residential Apartment Buildings of up to Six Storeys and Sixty Units:
The Minimum Required Lot Frontage: 30.5m (100ft-1in)
The Minimum Required Lot Depth: 36m (118ft-2in)
The Minimum Required Front Yard Setback: 6m (19ft-8in)
The Minimum Required Rear Yard Setback: 7.5m (24ft-8in)
The Minimum Required Side Yard Setback: 1.8m (5ft-11in)
Maximum Permitted Building Depth: 22.5m (73ft-10in)
Maximum Permitted Building Height: 18m (59ft)
Maximum Permitted Number of Storeys: 6
Maximum Permitted Number of Units: 60
The height of the first storey is an additional 0.8 m (2ft-8in) more than the average residential floor to accommodate a higher ceiling height for the retail space.
The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) carries 1 out of every 4 public transit riders in the entire Canada. Almost 50% of the City of Toronto is zoned as Residential.
Ontario Building Code 1990 introduced requirements for four-storey residential Group C occupancy including a requirement for sprinklers. In Ontario Building Code 1997, Group D (business and personal services) was permitted to four storeys in wood, with sprinklers. And Ontario Building Code 2012 was amended in January 2015 to allow five and six-storey wood buildings with multiple occupancies and many specific requirements beyond those for 4-storey wood buildings.
Typically concrete and steel is the choice for construction of six-storey high apartment buildings in Ontario, a six-storey high rental apartment building comprised primarily of cross-laminated timber (CLT) - Ontario’s first six-storey mass timber residential rental building is built at 1602 Queen Street East in Toronto. The largely prefabricated CLT structure was assembled in less than six weeks after the foundation had been completed. The mass timber design consists of a 6m (20ft) wide six-plex and a 12m (40ft) wide 12-plex conforming to the City of Toronto’s midrise guidelines.
While there are cross-laminated timber (CLT) manufacturing facilities in Quebec and B.C., the project’s CLT was imported from Austria. The first cross-laminated timber (CLT) factory in Ontario opens in St. Thomas.
In 2017 an 18-storey wood frame student residence was constructed on the campus of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and a 13-storey wood frame condominium was completed in Quebec City with the assistance of Natural Resources Canada, and leveraged by the provinces and industry, to aid in the development and approvals for this new type of wood construction in Canada.
A unique mass timber project has arrived in Toronto with T3 Sterling Road, a 420,000 sq.ft. development consisting of 3 buildings near Dundas West subway station and Bloor GO and UPX station. Two full mass timber commercial buildings comprising six and eight stories consist of exposed glue-laminated columns and beams (Glulam) gravity system supporting dowel laminated timber slabs (DLT) along with a steel braced frame lateral system, 2hr fire design, MEP routing, integration of façade/edge support and connection detailing.
With the 2020 National Building Code developers in Canada will be permitted to construct buildings up to 12 storeys using mass timber technology. With mass timber buildings, the primary load-bearing structure is composed of solid or engineered wood. Large wood panels used for walls, floors and roofs are prefabricated in a plant and assembled on site. This way, mass timber projects complete faster and require 90% less construction traffic.
Modern infrastructure combined with modern fire suppression/protection systems and new technologies for acoustic and thermal performance of buildings make up to 12 storey high mass timber buildings feasible in Ontario.
Mass timber buildings are fire resistant. When exposed to fire, the outer layer chars and acts as a protective coating, insulating the wood underneath. Additionally, the lightweight nature of mass timber, weighing approximately one fifth of equivalent concrete buildings, allows for smaller foundations and seismic resistance.
Our fee for preparing a concept plan, and appling and attending a pre-consultation meeting with the City of Toronto for a proposed apartment building of up to six storeys and sixty units is $2,985+HST. We prepare all the required drawings, plans and reports to obtain site plan approval and building permit to construct an apartment building of up to six storeys and sixty units.
For Additional Information please contact the following Key Players of Our Design Team for Apartment Buildings of up to Six Storeys and Sixty Units.
- Miaoyi Xue, P.Eng,
- Joo Min Park, MEng, P.Eng.
- Saloni Khoja, B.Arch.
- Edgar Labuac, P.Eng
- Weiming Lin, B.Eng
- Rui Cong Xia, B.ASc(Civil)
- Yuen Yu Ng, B.S.Sc (Arch)
- Hoi Ching So, B.S.Sc (Arch)
- Liu Sun, B.Des (Arch)
Land Line: 416 332 1743
After Hours / Text Messages: 416 727 8336
Email: landbuildex@gmail.com