The 'Missing Middle', a Housing Affordability Crisis.

From Diane Peters, TVO.


I need to grab a few housewarming gifts: two of my close friends just bought townhouses, and they’ll be moving soon. One scored an affordable three-bedroom with a tiny yard and pink carpeting in downtown Toronto that has room for her two kids and is close both to their schools and their dad. (Fear not — she’s already ripped up the carpet.) Another paid less than $350,000 for an almost-new Kitchener townhouse kitted out with stainless-steel appliances. 

Just blocks from her aging parents, it will accommodate a home office and the dog she never could have had in her old Toronto apartment.

My friends are finding new places to land in what’s known as missing-middle housing. Graham Haines, research manager for the City Building Institute at Ryerson University, defined it in a recent report as “housing that is appropriate and affordable for a range of household and family sizes, and incomes … The Missing Middle is multi-use housing in our already built neighbourhoods.”

Think townhouses and family-sized units in low-rise buildings — freehold, condo, or rental. Laneway houses, houses split into duplexes, walk-ups, and units above storefronts count, too. 

They’re often around 1,000 square feet or so. And they’re missing because we don’t just have enough of them.

“Over the last 10 to 15 years, the GTA has grown with a mix of typical suburban sprawl at the edge of our urban region and high-rise towers at the centre,” says Haines. Many municipalities’ development processes encourage this “tall or sprawl” approach — it’s pricey and time-consuming to get permits, and plans can be rejected, so it’s primarily big developers that are willing to take the risk, and then generally only for large condos or tracts of housing.

Meanwhile, Canadian families are getting smaller, and although many of our neighbourhoods house fewer people than they did a few decades ago, we resist density: in most cities, you can turn a duplex into a single-family home without telling anyone — but carving out, say, a basement apartment requires a permit at the very least.

Link to the rest here.

Image. Zach Neal. This is Tricar’s development on Front Street, Sarnia.

Thank you for reading.