Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods (EHON) is a City of Toronto initiative intended to facilitate the construction of more low-rise housing in residential neighbourhoods to meet the needs of our growing city. The Beaches-East York Pilot Project, a key component of EHON, is exploring the feasibility of building missing middle-type buildings, ranging from duplexes to low-rise apartments, on selected City-owned sites designated as Neighborhoods in the City’s official plan. Our firm was retained by CreateTO to develop a pilot project aimed at developing feasible missing middle demonstration projects that can serve as models for other sites, beyond City-owned properties, while ensuring a focus on affordability, accessibility, resiliency, and sustainability. City Planning and Environment & Climate staff were part of the team formed to develop this pilot project.
The selected site at 72 Amroth represents the second phase of the pilot project, following the initial typology study we completed. The site, a recently divested property of the Toronto Parking Authority, is currently a parking lot. Its strategic location makes it an ideal candidate for ‘missing middle’ scale development. Situated adjacent to the Danforth, it serves as a transition zone between the higher-density commercial corridor to the north and the existing single-family detached dwellings to the south. Additionally, the site’s unique L-shape allows for the exploration of multiple building types and scales within one site, while its larger size enables the construction of more units compared to the previous typology study.