Ryerson University economist Frank Clayton lives near Oriole Rd. and Lonsdale Ave., a midtown locale with primo transit connections, schools and shops.It’s the kind of amenity-rich neighbourhood coveted by millennials, who have hit their family years. It’s also one of the relatively few areas of Toronto where detached houses, condos and lowrise apartments rub elbows.Like other North American cities including Vancouver, Edmonton, Seattle and Portland, Toronto would like to get more population into built-up areas that include more than apartments, Clayton said.“When we look at these prime neighbourhoods now, they have a mixture of single detached houses and lowrise apartments and they have secondary suites. Those are very attractive neighbourhoods, they’re very well located,” he said. “There’s no stigma attached to them because they have a mix of housing.”But that mix isn’t available in the “yellowbelt,” the term that refers to the approximately 70 per cent of Toronto’s residential areas, which is zoned for detached and semi-detached housing that sells for $1 million-plus on average.Now there is a growing chorus of policy-makers, planners, advocates and experts pushing to change that. They say a mix of housing in those stable single-family neighbourhoods would make them more accessible to underhoused middle- and lower-income residents. Duplexes, triplexes and more secondary suites would help populate well-serviced areas where resident numbers are actually declining in the midst of a regionwide population boom.Outspoken urban planner Sean Galbraith is among those leading the call to abolish many of the existing residential zoning restrictions. He said the opponents to less restrictive residential zoning are change-fearing “neighbourhood character fetishists” who want their streets “shrink wrapped.”Property owners can tear down an old bungalow to build a monster house on ...
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