Source from: Beach Metro Community News
The garden suite under construction in the backyard of an Eastwood Road home. Photo by Alan Shackleton.
The reality of garden suites and the impact they will have is sinking in for residents of an Upper Beach neighbourhood.
A garden suite under construction at a house on Eastwood Road between Woodbine and Coxwell avenues has raised a range of emotions for both those who initiated the process and those who found themselves affected by the structure.
For the neighbours surrounding the property, they said news that a garden suite was being built in the backyard of one of the houses on the street came as a shock and they are not happy about it at all.
On the other hand, the property owners feel they are being unfairly treated by some of the other residents in the neighbourhood because of their decision to build the garden suite.
In this story, Beach Metro Community News has decided to put the focus on the rules surrounding garden suites, and the rights of the property owner and their neighbours when one gets built. As for the relationship between the neighbours, it is accurate to say it has “soured” because of the garden suite.
Garden suites and laneway suites were declared as legal “as-of-right” for property owners to build by the City of Toronto in a bylaw that passed in early 2022.
The bylaw means that as long as a proposed suite meets the criteria for size and location and is not requiring any zoning changes or “variances” it is automatically allowed. The property owner building it is under absolutely no obligation to inform or consult with neighbours about it.
The garden suite being built on the Eastwood Road site meets the city’s criteria. The neighbours said they were not informed in advance about it.
In this case, the garden suite is a two-storey one with the living space being over a garage. It meets all the legal and building code requirements and is allowed to be built – whether the neighbours like it or not.
What’s generating a lot of the frustration over the Eastwood project for the neighbours who don’t like it are the city’s rules on the suites and lack of mandatory notification in advance.
The neighbours directly to the west of the Eastwood project have a sign on their front lawn objecting to the “monstrosity” of a garden suite being built beside their backyard.
Part of the reason for putting up the sign was to make other residents aware of what they consider to be the city’s flawed bylaw allowing such suites.
“It’s a warning to all, that inappropriate, ill-considered, and ill-approved garden suites will have negative impacts on you and your neighbourhood,” said those neighbours in a statement to Beach Metro Community News. “And if they come to your neighbourhood, know that city planning people and your city government are not on your side. Expect to be dismissed and ignored.”
They also expect to be called NIMBY’s (Not In My Backyard) and face criticism from those who strongly support the need for more types of housing in the city including garden and laneway suites, multi-unit and higher densities in what were traditionally considered to be residential neighbourhoods made up only of single-family detached or semi-detached homes.
The neighbours understand the bylaw is what it is, but they want the city rules on when and if the community should be notified changed.
“The members of the community know that they can’t stop the building of this ‘garden suite’. However, they want to change the bylaw to ensure that future ‘garden suites’ can’t be built without community consultation and an environmental assessment,” said a news release from a number of residents in the area that was sent to Toronto media outlets including Beach Metro Community News last week.
The homeowners of the Eastwood property where the garden suite is being built said they gave their immediate neighbour “a heads up” about their plan to build the garden suite which is to be for their widowed mother-in-law.
They said in an email to Beach Metro Community News that they looked into the garden suite bylaw and if it would be possible to build one on their property.
“Once we had a better idea of what this would look like we informed our immediate neighbour of the proposed design and invited them to meet with our architect in case they had any questions.”
They said they have been “open and transparent” through the process.
The community members who want changes to the bylaw so that mandatory community consultation is included in it have a meeting set up with Beaches-East York Councillor Brad Bradford in the relatively near future to talk about their concerns in person.
Bradford told Beach Metro Community News in an interview last week that the garden and laneway suite bylaw was set up as it was so that community opposition (and the implied political pressure it puts on local councillors who need to be re-elected every four years) to projects that increase density and provide more housing in residential neighbourhoods is not a factor.
“That was another reason to set up as-of-right provisions. It takes the element of the councillor’s subjectivity and opposition out of the equation,” he said.
Prior to the 2022 bylaw, such suites would have had little chance of success if the majority of neighbours objected.
“The city is in a housing crisis and the old system of proposals would see people jumping through hoops, and it didn’t work,” said Bradford.
“We did a prolonged public consultation and it is informed by lots of public input and we are certainly not the first city in North America to be doing this,” he said of the city’s garden and laneway suite bylaw.
“My position is I’m pro-housing and I’m all about the YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard). We need to be adding gentle density in our city with housing options at all price points for people in all of Toronto.”
That being said, Bradford acknowledged that there are going to be conflicts and frustration as people get used to these new rules. “What I would say is change is always difficult… there will be situations where a garden suite is going up and folks are not aware of the policies.”
According to the City of Toronto in an email to Beach Metro Community News last Friday, a total of 15 garden suites have been built so far in the city and there are 297 applications in the works for them.
“The Chief Building Official is obligated to issue a building permit when an application meets the Ontario Building Code and all applicable laws, including zoning. The permit provides permission to commence construction,” said the city.
If a variance to the bylaw is needed for a proposed garden or laneway suite, the application would then go to the local Committee of Adjustment where members of the public can make comments on it, said the city.
If there is a case where construction begins without a permit, or the actual suite ends up not conforming to the bylaw, the city said it has “a number of strategic actions aimed at preventing problems from occurring on residential infill construction sites…as well as creating an effective and streamlined enforcement system to respond to issues when they do occur.”
The garden suite at the Eastwood property is being built by a company called Densecity. About 50 per cent of the company’s projects consist of garden or laneway suites, said managing partner Joaquim Peixoto in an email to Beach Metro Community News.
Peixoto is aware that some of the neighbours are not happy about the Eastwood project, which is further complicated by a shared driveway between the property and its neighbour to the west which is the only access to both backyards.
“The garden suite being built on Eastwood fully conforms as-of-right to the City of Toronto bylaw. Drawing from all our projects, there is some sense that people feel unhappy with suites adjacent to their yard as potential blockage of sun or as infringement on their privacy,” he said.
“We find these same concerns arise with a garden suite or any typical construction project. There have been more neighbours interested and excited in our builds rather than opposed to them. Every construction site will have some issues with noise, dirt, equipment load/unload – construction is notoriously not the cleanest and quietest activity. We do our best to work as quickly as we can to minimize the drag of the disruption to the neighbours. We have an open line of communication and do our best to accommodate everyone while moving the job along for the homeowner.”
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