It's been eight years since my last post here in On Craven Road. 😳
I actually thought I'd come to the end of this particular adventure. There were still a few drafts in my folder, including one called "Privy to History," on the newfangled water closet's war on typhoid, and another, "The Seedy Side of the Street," inspired by the 2009 meth lab fire and earlier examples of our ex-Erie Terrace breaking bad. But overall, I had the feeling I'd found and blogged about most of the street's most interesting history.
And then came the garden suite rumble.
Good fences make good neighbours, but unlike lower Craven, the stretch above the railway tracks did not go through the arduous process of taxation, expropriation and widening that led in 1916 to the south side's famously epic wooden fence.
So now, the people on either side of upper Craven are at odds over whether the City of Toronto's new 2022 zoning by-law should allow garden suites in Parkmount back yards that front onto Craven Road.
This week, both CityTV and CBC News published articles with accompanying video about the conflict. The CBC writes,
"Residents who have properties next to one of Toronto's narrowest streets say they're disappointed to learn the city is looking to amend local zoning by-law to disallow garden suites.
"Craven Road near Coxwell Station is about four metres wide. On one side are tiny historical homes built in the early 20th century and on the other, the backyards and garages of Parkmount Road homes.
"Garden suites are 'a self-contained living accommodation located within an ancillary building, usually located in the rear yard, but not on a public lane,' the city says on its website.
"But local councillor Paula Fletcher has introduced the motion asking city staff to review the area. She says Craven Road is too narrow and doesn't fit the criteria of the city's garden suite bylaw which was intended to accommodate "garden-to-garden" residences, where garden suites situated in backyards face other backyard residences.
"'Sometimes the city staff make a mistake,' she said. 'In this case, 99 per cent was right. This might be the outlier — .01 per cent — on this little strip of teeny tiny Craven Road. It just might not fit the category, so we're going to see.'"
The CBC video mentions that the dispute started last year when a Parkmount resident, seeking to build a garden suite, "filed an application for a minor variance the City denied. But after the homeowner appealed the decision, some Craven residents rallied together to hire a lawyer to help fight it."
The original application was reviewed "as a garden suite rather than a laneway suite because none of the surrounding streets meet the definition of a laneway." Even though Craven Road is very narrow, it is in fact technically a city street. The City planner notes, "If this had been a laneway suite, the variances the resident was asking for would have been considered minor.
However, according to the Committee of Adjustment hearing recording and its Notice of Decision, the application was denied because "In the opinion of the Committee, the variance(s) are not minor."
The rules say "a garden suite could be two-storeys depending on your site, provided it complies with the height, setback, separation distance, and angular plane requirements." But the Parkmount plan was asking for major exemptions from seven different requirements.
The committee noted in the hearing that the proposal was too large for the lot, it had zero setback from the lot line on Craven Road, and the angular plane was not respected, making it in effect "a big box right up to the lot line, [so] that people" across the very narrow Craven Road "are literally going to be staring into a wall."
As these design factors placed an "unacceptable burden" and "particular negative impact on the existing residences," the application was refused.
The garden suite bylaw was introduced so designs that conform to the guidelines would be approved "
as of right, meaning no re-zonings or lengthy Committee of Adjustment appeals." But it's not surprising that some homeowners will push for the maximum variances they can get away with. While the extra paperwork and attendance at Committee of Adjustment hearings is not onerous for that individual homeowner, if multiple projects along the street all want to push the envelope, the work quickly piles up for any neighbours seeking to push back.
The Craven residents who hired the lawyer to help them organize their argument in this case guessed this wouldn't be the last attempt to build an inappropriately-designed and oversized garden suite on the street. They asked Councillor Fletcher what could be done to avoid having to keep fighting such requests for variances one-by-one in perpetuity.
Fletcher then
requested a report from Toronto's
City Planning office on "the history and classification of Craven Road, and options to remove Craven Road from as-of-right planning permissions for garden suites due to the nature of the road."
On Sept. 19th, those planners held a community consultation, starting with a helpful, in-depth
slideshow by Alexa Legge explaining the background and planning framework for the proposed amendment. They then invited feedback.
In the words of the
Toronto Star way back in
1911, "It was a stormy, roily meeting." Most of the folks who spoke were opposed to the amendment, often angrily so, which could explain why few Craven residents stepped up to speak in favour.
Arguments against included: that this was a slippery slope and soon every street in Toronto would want an exemption, that this was a waste of City staff’s time, that Craven was not actually unique, that the opposition was motivated by racism, that studies should have been done before targeting a constituency like Parkmount, that the opposition might be motivated by personal grievance, that plenty of streets in Europe or Japan have higher density, that the older generation was hogging land and young people are frustrated, that there is racial discrimination in the planning process, that any exemption is unjustifiable in a housing crisis, and that the garages on the west side look like they might fall apart any day, so why not replace them with homes?
Councillor Fletcher then gave closing remarks. She mentioned that the whole process had been triggered by the
Committee of Adjustment (CoA) and the
Toronto Local Appeal Body (TLAB), with the hope that there might be some way to adjust these as-of-right permissions to make sure that their setback could be better than 1.5m. She explained that
through-lots like these were being studied in a few other locations around the city, to see what it means to have any kind of suite in those situations.
She also asked the planning staff to research what the price point is for laneway and garden suites, noting there is no requirement for any of them to be affordable. (
This Storeys article does some math and quotes Councillor Gord Perks: "If you look at the kind of rents currently charged in laneway and garden suites, they are not what anyone would call affordable rents. These are very boutique and high-end rental units.")
No one is arguing that they aren't a great opportunity to add housing overall, Fletcher concluded. It's just a question of what's appropriate for little, odd streets like this one. Can we find a sweet spot? Is there some way to adjust this that would work for everybody on these streets?
The next step is for City planning staff to prepare a report for Community Council before a statutory public meeting on Oct. 24th.
[Update: This looks likely to change. See Sept. 27 post, "Thoroughly Modern Through-Lots"]
Anyone wanting to submit a letter can email
Alexa.Legge@Toronto.ca at the Community Planning office. Once the meeting recording, staff report, and instructions on how to participate at Community Council are available, I'll add those here as well.
My own feeling coming out of the meeting is that there must be a way to find a compromise that works for everyone. I don't believe this needs to be a zero-sum game, as much as it looks that way right now.
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