Four-unit condo developments to hit Toronto soon. What effect will they have on the housing market?
A small builder has big plans for a property on a residential street in the Junction.
If approved by the city, there will be four condo units available for sale on a plot of land where there was once a single-family home.
The proposed development, put forth by builder HMV Homes, would be similar to an earlier project they did in Pape Village, with three units in a triplex and one in a laneway
suite.
The city is also reviewing an application from another builder to put four condo units — a triplex and a garden suite — on Dovercourt Road.
It seems more of these small condo developments are arriving to Toronto neighbourhoods that were once characterized by single-family homes. But the projects are complex and pricey, experts have previously said. So where is the new interest coming from?
What is a multiplex condo?
A multiplex is a type of building that has several units. More often than not, those units are rentals, but builders can apply for them to be condominiums so that each unit is sold separately. In that case, the owners of the units form a small condo corporation, and each owner has rights and responsibilities to the others that are laid out in a condo declaration. They may also pay maintenance fees.
Builders said the city’s recent Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods initiative — which led to garden suites being legalized in most residential zones and allowed duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes to be built citywide without special permissions — has made the planning and approvals process faster and simpler.
At 68 Westholme Ave. in the Junction, HMV Homes is already building a triplex and laneway suite, and the city is reviewing the application to turn the units into condos.
According to the application, all four units have three bedrooms, two of them have two bathrooms and the other two have three bathrooms. Each has its own outdoor space — the laneway suite and a basement suite each have access to separate areas of the yard, while the main floor unit has a balcony, and a two-storey unit encompassing the top two floors has a balcony and a terrace.
Christopher Langley, the urban planner representing the condo application, says these projects open new opportunities for buyers to get into neighbourhoods they wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise.
“It puts families closer to schools and to work, and (different) lifestyle opportunities,” Langley said.
At 798 Dovercourt Rd., the builder has a permit for a three-storey triplex and a garden suite, and an application for individual ownership of each unit is still under review. The applicant representing the builder declined a request for an interview.
How much does a multiplex condo cost?
The price of multiplex condos will differ depending on their size, design and neighbourhood.
The Pape Village project by HMV Homes that hit the market in 2024 had three family-sized units that sold relatively quickly around the million-dollar mark. The outlier was a one-bedroom basement unit, which sold for $375,000 after about six months on the market.
Langley said the Junction project takes lessons from the Pape Village development, such as the success of family-sized units.
While Montreal-based HMV Homes is breaking into Toronto’s market, Blue Lion Building has been constructing multiplexes here for more than a decade.
Blue Lion Building architect and president Evan Saskin said his firm designs high-end condo multiplexes that are made to be more houselike than apartments. Their first such development was registered around 2012, Saskin said. And while most of the firm’s projects have needed zoning bylaw exemptions, some of the company’s more recent projects have not needed any zoning variances, thanks to the city’s new rules.
Altogether, construction costs of multiplex units add up to a bit more than that of a luxury house — there have to be more kitchens, bathrooms and sets of stairs — but Saskin said the math works out because the sale prices add up to be “comparable, or a little bit higher” than “a really fancy house” on the same piece of land.
Saskin said he recently worked on a development on Ossington Avenue, where units in a triplex and laneway suite were sold separately. The lowest-priced unit, a 680-square-foot, one-bedroom laneway suite, sold for $750,000 in June 2023. The unit with the highest sale price was an 1,800-square-foot, three-bedroom unit with three storeys, with a basement, backyard and parking. It sold for $1.38 million in June 2024.
For buyers, “the appeal as a condo alternative is obvious,” Saskin said. “You get a similar amount of square footage for the same price with no amenities, minimal maintenance fees, and the privacy of a stand-alone structure.”
As an alternative to a house, Saskin said the units offer plenty of livable space, “designed and built to a standard that wouldn’t otherwise be available at that price point, in that location.”
The tradeoff, he said, “is density and the complexity of running a small condo corporation.”
Leonid Kotov, founder and president of “missing middle” rental developer Greenstreet Flats, said the financial upside to builders going the condo route on multiplexes, rather than rentals, is the profit turnaround.
Purpose-built rental apartments require a “very long term perspective” whereas successful condo projects will deliver returns much faster, he said.
Multiplexes add options to lowrise neighbourhoods, builders say
By creating missing middle housing and slowly adding density to single-family neighbourhoods, builders say condo multiplexes can benefit the city as a whole.
“What the city of Toronto doesn’t need, in my opinion, is a lot of other $3-million-plus houses in higher-end neighbourhoods with 3,000 to 5,000 square feet,” Saskin said.
Instead, multiplexes can support growth by bringing families into neighbourhoods incrementally, he said.
Multiplexes introduce more options to lowrise neighbourhoods, Langley added, which can be beneficial for people downsizing and aging in place.
They added incoming changes at the city level should continue to simplify the process.
In an email to the Star, the city said it is improving its review process for condos. Last summer, it created a team focused on expediting existing housing applications, and later this year, it plans to implement changes to the review process that would see routine applications — like most condo proposals — processed faster and likely at a reduced cost to applicants.
“We’re in desperate need of houses within the city of Toronto and even the GTA in general,” Langley said.
“So allowing for more opportunities for individuals to creatively think about how they can enter into the market … these are the opportunities that us as planners have to start looking at.”
This article was first reported by The Star
