Latest news with #EurodaleDevelopments
Globe and Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Toronto wrangles with a simple question: What is a multiplex?
Brendan Charters runs a 15-year-old design-build firm, Eurodale Developments, which specializes in custom homes. He is diversifying, like a growing number of Greater Toronto Area home-building firms, into multiplexes due both to demand and planning reforms intended to enable more missing middle-type housing. – But, like many contractors who have dipped their toes into this new (but actually old) market, he's come face-to-face with a slippery question: What, exactly, is a multiplex? According to the City of Toronto, a multiplex built in neighbourhoods zoned for low-rise residential can have up to four units. Council's planning and housing committee next week [June 12] will begin considering whether to stretch that definition, so multiplexes can have up to six units, with apartment buildings re-defined as anything with seven or more. However, as Mr. Charters and others – including city planning officials – have discovered, such calculations are anything but straightforward. Take the example of two semi-detached houses that could each become fourplexes. 'We're actually building one or two of these now,' he says. 'We slipped in before the City of Toronto started to say, 'Wait a second, these are duplexes. We can't fourplex them because they're semi-detached duplexes.'' In other cases, city planning examiners have deemed that such conjoined projects are actually small apartment buildings, which council has voted to allow in areas such as major streets but nonetheless run into opposition from neighbours and committees of adjustment. To confront these ambiguities, city planning staff will also propose additional categories – e.g., 'detached houseplexes' or 'semi-detached houseplexes' – to capture anomalies in the original multiplex bylaw, based on in-depth analysis they carried out on the first 222 multiplex applications submitted for approval (as of last summer). Yet another twist in this definitional maze focuses on the number of bedrooms in a given unit within a multiplex. At the same committee meeting, councillors will get their first look at a staff proposal to cap the number of bedrooms in a multiplex – a move that has left Mr. Charters wondering whether the city genuinely wants to enable more family-sized rental housing at smaller scales, per council's various missing-middle policies. 'When the planning department rolled this out to us as an industry, I said, 'What's the number?' They said there's a mathematical formula that's being devised. But I was also told one of our projects, that has a four-bedroom unit and two two-bedroom units, would be fine. The fear is that [such projects] would contravene the rooming house bylaw.' The city's attempt to regulate the number of bedrooms touches some tricky planning questions. While council has been pushing the development industry for almost two decades to build more two- and three-bedroom apartments in order to allow families with children to live in high-rises, the market reality is that condos of that size tend to be very expensive and difficult for young families to afford. What's more, demand for apartments with several bedrooms includes older people who are downsizing as well as students or unrelated adults who need to share larger apartments in order to afford rent. Yet when planning officials analyzed the first 222 multiplex proposals, they noticed a handful where each unit had six to nine bedrooms, which suggested that the builders weren't thinking about families. In effect, a single multiplex with four such apartments might have up to 20 to 30 bedrooms in total, making it for all intents and purposes a rooming house. The planning department's solution will be to impose a limit on the total number of bedrooms in a given multiplex, but allow the builder to decide how to distribute them among the units. Mr. Charters says he understands the city's desire to avoid inadvertently the development of rooming houses when there's already a formal process for licensing them. But, he adds, the bedroom cap 'is confusing for the marketplace. It creates another wrinkle of unpredictability for us.' The city's efforts to remove other obstacles to multiplex applications has also included a review of what happens with these kinds of proposals when they go to committees of adjustment. Since council began adopting more permissive zoning regulations in areas long set aside for detached houses, the committees have turned back missing-middle type projects, even if they generally conformed with council's goal of promoting 'gentle density.' With multiplex projects that have to pass muster with the committee of adjustment, city planners will now be expected to submit their professional opinions to help the members understand how such proposals fit within council's broader policy aims. Yet the roadblocks include perverse incentives created not by the planning bylaws but rather by development charges and the financial incentives council has adopted to encourage such projects. Development charges, which can run to tens of thousands of dollars, are waived for multiplexes, and deferred for garden suites and laneway houses. Some builders have sought to maximize the density on a lot by applying to build a four-unit multiplex with a garden suite in the back. But, according to architect Craig Race, whose firm, Lanescape, specializes in such projects, contractors who want to build both simultaneously can find themselves on the receiving end of large development charge fees. 'You're allowed to do both as of right in the zoning by law,' he says. 'But the way staff are choosing to interpret the development charge bylaw, they're forcing you to build them out of sequence.' In other words, the contractor must first build the multiplex, and can only then begin with the garden or laneway suite, even though it makes sense, logistically and financially, to do both at the same time. As Mr. Race says, 'It's extremely inefficient.' One small contractor, who asked not to be named for fear of jeopardizing an approval, found himself facing $400,000 in development charges because he'd tried to do both at once, thereby triggering levies on all five units – a financial burden that has made the project difficult to justify commercially. Mr. Race adds that there's a lack of consistency in how city officials deal with this problem. 'Some staff have been trained to watch out for that. Others have not.'
Globe and Mail
08-05-2025
- General
- Globe and Mail
Beaches reno brings energy efficiency and comfort
Andrea and Gordon Webster's home in The Beaches is a few rows up from Lake Ontario and across the road from a ravine where they often see deer and foxes roaming about. They said being in the ravine area has made them more environmentally conscious, and they hope the new green renovation on their home will help reduce pollution and keep the ecosystem in their backyard healthy. Apart from making it a better place for the animals who share the neighbourhood, they also hope it will increase their home's energy efficiency, improve indoor air quality, and make it more weather resilient. Before the renovation, heavy, wind-driven rain and storm surges had driven moisture into the house, making it sometimes damp and leaky. 'Energy efficiency is a major concern,' Mr. Webster said. 'That's one of those things, that we both believe in the environment. Ultimately, we were just trying to figure out how to do that within our budget.' After the renovation, the home won two awards that would seem to be 'diametrically opposed,' said Brendan Charters, development manager at Eurodale Developments inc., which executed the renovation. One award was for the 'Best Exterior Renovation" and the other for the 'Best Green Renovation Project.' Mr. Charters said that in renovations, 'there's always this war that's taking place' between improving the structure and systems in the house and making it pretty. He said the Websters took a very 'well-balanced approach' by updating the curb appeal, which won them the first award. They also ensured the home was operationally and structurally sound, while refreshing the interior, which won them the second award. Mr. Charters said the home isn't 'green' in the traditional sense – there are no solar panels or ground-loop geothermal systems. But the structure is highly energy efficiency. 'We really focused on making the home more resilient to the changing climate,' Mr. Charters said. 'That resiliency then allows the home to be more comfortable for the occupants. It creates a healthier space for them, and it creates a space that will perform better longer-term.' Before their remodelling, Ms. Webster said the house with a tile roof and stucco exterior looked like it belonged on the Italian Riviera rather than in their neighbourhood, which is mostly Tudor-style homes. But in addition to not fitting in with the neighbourhood, Mr. Charters explains that the roof didn't have enough of an overhang to direct water away from the home and the cement stucco didn't have rain screening, so the water was able to seep into the walls. Further, their backyard is higher than their front yard, so with the renovation, it was important to make sure the water was moving in the right direction around the house to prevent flooding. Although they wanted to refresh the home's look, the Websters were focused on making it structurally sound, improving water management, and reducing operating costs. They set out to make it more efficient by changing the roof slope, insulating the walls, updating the windows and installing energy recovery ventilators that move stale air outside and bring fresh air in. Planning the renovation took a year. However, when they stripped their home down to the studs, they found issues they didn't expect. Along with the hornet's nest in one of the walls, the biggest surprise they found when stripping back the exterior was that their basement floor wasn't waterproofed. One day during the renovation, it rained and they found that their floor was wet. 'We never knew that; we had lived in it for seven years. We never felt a wet floor,' Ms. Webster said. 'It was certainly a surprise financially and just the 'Wow' factor of, 'Now we have to waterproof our entire basement.'' But they had budgeted wisely, putting aside an extra 20 per cent for unforeseen expenses. Most of that went to waterproofing the basement. 'It fell in pretty much close to that,' Ms. Webster said. After 14 months of renovations and spending what the Websters say was 'considerably over' $1-million, but less than $2 million, they are pleased with the result. They also make a point of saying how impressed they have been with their contractor. Before signing any contracts with Eurodale, the Websters spoke with previous clients about their experience. They chose Eurodale in the end because they had heard many stories about other contractors 'ghosting' their customers after the renovation. They heard from others that Eurodale stayed in touch and stayed accountable to their work. 'We did speak to three different referrals,' Ms. Webster said. 'The big thing was not what they did right, but how they corrected things that didn't go as planned. 'That is a huge amount of stress; that you've spent this money,' Ms. Webster said. 'Are they going to continue to support you after?' Now that they're living in the home, they have also noticed that it feels significantly drier than before. 'The difference in the way it felt and the dryness of the house was significant,' Mr. Webster said. 'Now we have a storm outside, and you don't notice any difference, and the air continues to be dry and nice inside.' In terms of efficiency, the improved insulation makes their home more able to retain heat. Ms. Webster said they no longer need to wear sweaters indoors in winter. Mr. Webster said their utility costs have also decreased significantly. 'We essentially don't have gas going into the house, so it's dropped significantly,' Mr. Webster said. 'Our electricity has gone up just because we have to compensate for the lack of gas that we're using, but overall, I would definitely say they've come down.' 'It's the exact look and feel that we wanted,' Ms. Webster said. 'It's a calm environment, it showcases our art, that is very personal to us. That, coupled with the construction, provides a home.'
