The draft updated Mid-Rise Building Design Guidelines will be presented to the Planning and Housing Committee on December 5, 2024. The As-of-Right Zoning for Mid-Rise Buildings on Avenues without Avenue Studies final report (Item 2024.PH16.1) was adopted by City Council as By-law 1260-2024 on November 14, 2024.
This webpage provides a centralized resource for all Housing Action Plan (HAP) action items that relate to Avenues, expanding Mixed Use Areas, and as-of-right zoning for Avenues. The HAP directs staff to identify policy, mapping, zoning, and guideline changes to simplify approvals and facilitate development along Avenues and in Mixed Use Areas. These HAP action items include:
Please check back periodically for updates on upcoming opportunities for consultations and status updates on forthcoming reports.
The Housing Action Plan (HAP) is a cornerstone of the City’s efforts to address current housing challenges. Adopted by City Council in December 2022, the HAP outlines a strong ‘made-in-Toronto’ multi-pronged approach to increase housing supply, housing choice and affordability for current and future residents. The Plan will also help to enable market, non-market and mixed housing production to achieve or exceed the provincial housing target of 285,000 new homes over the next 10 years.
Map 2 and Chapter 2 of the City’s Official Plan outlines the policies and geography of Toronto’s Urban Structure. This structure identifies the target growth areas (i.e., Avenues, Downtown, Centres and Employment Areas) in the city that are intended to accommodate most of the city’s population and job growth while being supported by quality public transit, infrastructure, and community services. In combination with Chapter 4, which contains the land use designations that apply across the city (i.e., Mixed Use Areas, Neighbourhoods, etc.), the Official Plan sets out a strategy for managing growth.
To implement the policies of the Official Plan, Urban Design Guidelines and Zoning By-law regulations provide more specific direction to guide how Toronto evolves and grows. Updating the Official Plan, Urban Design Guidelines, and Zoning By-law regulations, as part of the HAP work plan, will help realize the vision of more inclusive and complete communities, and support the objective of increasing housing supply.
It is important to note that other Housing Action Plan items, such as the Expanding Options in Neighbourhoods (EHON) Major Streets Study, are not part of this work program but are interrelated and require the City to take a comprehensive and integrated approach to their implementation.
The HAP directs staff to review and update zoning permissions and standards along Avenues to remove obstacles to their redevelopment with new housing. At present, Mixed Use Areas along Avenues are generally zoned Commercial Residential (CR) Zone under City-wide Zoning By-law 569-2013, subject to Development Standard Sets “SS2” and “SS3” that reflect the current Mid-rise Building Urban Design Guidelines performance standards. In many areas, the Zoning By-law’s maximum height and density permissions reflect historical permissions carried forward from pre-amalgamation zoning by-laws.
The HAP includes three projects to update zoning permissions for Avenues:
As one of the initial steps in the HAP, staff are reviewing and updating the Rear Transition Performance Standards from the Avenues & Mid-Rise Buildings Study (Standards 5A through 5D). The focused review of these performance standards has identified that flexibility in transition provisions creates additional opportunities to facilitate the development of mid-rise buildings, supporting increased housing supply in walkable, complete communities. Importantly, this approach intends to provide a wider range of housing options to address current housing challenges without compromising the needs of future generations.
At its meeting on November 30, 2023, the Planning and Housing Committee adopted a motion for the City to make best efforts to report back by Q4 2024 with draft consolidated mid-rise guidelines that incorporate recommendations resulting from mid-rise monitoring, public and stakeholder consultation undertaken to date, and analysis that amend the performance standards with the goal of encouraging mid-rise developments that are more economical to build and more environmentally sustainable.
Estimated Completion Timeline: Q4 2024
Please see the Mid-Rise Buildings webpage.
The HAP directed staff to explore opportunities to streamline study requirements for building new housing along Avenues, extend and potentially introduce new Avenues, update the vision and policy direction for how Avenues will develop, and study options for creating areas of transition between Avenues and Neighbourhoods to enable more housing. A proposal report was adopted with amendments by the Planning and Housing Committee on February 28, 2024.
Estimated Completion Timeline: Q1 2025
As a future phase of the Avenues Policy Review initiative, the HAP directs staff to review the Official Plan Land Use maps (Maps 13-23) to explore opportunities to expand the Mixed Use Areas designation in certain geographies.
Estimated Completion Timeline: Q3 2025
For Avenues where an Avenue Study defining area-specific built form policies has not been completed, the HAP directs staff to amend the Zoning By-law to implement the updated Mid-Rise Building Urban Design Guidelines, including increasing maximum heights and densities.
This Zoning project includes three major components:
Staff consulted with the public and stakeholders through March 2024, and advanced a Proposals Report and draft Zoning By-law Amendment to the Planning and Housing Committee in June 2024. The Final Report is targeting the October 30, 2024 meeting of the Planning and Housing Committee.
Estimated Completion Timeline: Q4 2024
For Avenues where an Avenue Study has been completed, but the zoning by-law has not been updated, the HAP directs staff to review these Avenue segments and prepare implementing zoning so development that conforms to the adopted Area-Specific Policies and Urban Design Guidelines can proceed without individual rezoning applications. Staff are determining the potential for implementing as-of-right zoning regulations and standards, which will remove barriers to implementing policy and will streamline construction and development.
Estimated Completion Timeline: 2025
The HAP directs staff to explore opportunities to extend and potentially introduce new Avenues, and expand the Mixed Use Areas designation across the city. This review will provide direction on how to develop Avenues and the potential to create appropriate transition areas between Avenues and Neighbourhoods. To ensure that new housing can be delivered without delay in these expanded areas, updated as-of-right zoning permissions will be implemented.
Estimated Completion Timeline: Q3 2025