Zoning for Multi-Tenant Housing in Toronto

On March 31, 2024, a new regulatory framework for multi-tenant houses, or rooming houses, came into effect. This new regulatory framework was adopted by the Toronto City Council on December 14, 2022, and the Zoning Bylaw was amended to permit multi-tenant houses across Toronto. As part of this new framework, all operators of multi-tenant houses are required to obtain a license and must meet consistent standards as described in the new Multi-Tenant Houses Licensing Bylaw, which also introduces regular oversight and effective enforcement.

The 2022 Zoning Bylaw defined a multi-tenant house or rooming house as a “building in which living accommodation is provided for more than [two (C areas) or three (A & B areas)] persons in separate rooms, each of which may have food preparation facilities or sanitary facilities, but not both. A group home, residential care home, nursing home, retirement home, seniors community house, religious residence, student residence, tourist home, or hotel is not a rooming house.”

Before the implementation of this new framework, multi-tenant houses were only permitted in the former cities of Toronto, York, and Etobicoke (as lodging houses). Multi-tenant and lodging houses in the former City of Toronto and Etobicoke were required to be licensed, while York did not require such licensing. The former cities of East York, North York, and Scarborough did not permit multi-tenant houses at all.

Below is a map of Toronto showing the old zoning bylaw and indicating where multi-tenant houses were permitted by their maximum number of rooms used for living accommodation. As the 2022 Zoning Bylaw indicates that each person must have their own separate room for living accommodation, it is assumed that areas A and C have a maximum of 10 rooms, as the buildings in these areas are defined to have no more than 10 occupants.

Old zoning for multi-tenant housing

Under the new regulatory framework, however, the former cities of Etobicoke, North York, and Scarborough are permitted multi-tenant houses up to 6 rooms. The former cities of Toronto, East York, and York are permitted 6, 12, or 25 rooms depending on the zoning code and other variables. The map below shows the updates to the zoning by maximum number of rooms permitted in a multi-tenant house (based on city staff description).

New zoning for multi-tenant housing

By comparing these two maps, we can see there has been two types of significant change: change in the areas that permit multi-tenant houses, and change in the maximum number of rooms permitted for the multi-tenant houses in those areas.

The largest and most visible change is that multi-tenant houses are now permitted in the residential areas in the former cities of North York, East York, and Scarborough, all of which previously did not permit multi-tenant houses. The inclusion of the residential areas of these 3 former cities increased the total land permitting multi-tenant houses up by 192.3 km². Both North York and Scarborough now permit multi-tenant houses with a maximum of 6 rooms. For East York, in addition to permitting up to 6 rooms, some areas were also zoned to permit up to 12 and 25 rooms.

In the former cities of Toronto, Etobicoke, and York, which all previously permitted multi-tenant houses in some form, there were a few changes. For the former city of Toronto, there were very few changes, as most of the zoning rules were carried over into the new framework. There are some areas in former Toronto that either previously did not allow rooming houses, or had permission for a maximum of 12 rooms, which now allow up to 25 rooms. There are more changes to Etobicoke and York compared to Toronto, and these can be seen in the map below, which visualizes the change in maximum rooms between the old zoning bylaw and new zoning bylaw.

Change in zoning for multi-tenant housing

Both former cities of Etobicoke and York added new areas that would permit multi-tenant houses, with Etobicoke adding areas that only allowed for a maximum of 6 rooms, and York adding areas permitting all three maximums of 6, 12, and 25 rooms. These two former cities were the only ones in the older zoning bylaw that allowed a maximum of 10 rooms in their multi-tenant houses, but under the new framework, this cap of 10 rooms was eliminated, and either reduced to 6 rooms or increased to 12 rooms.

Of particular interest is Etobicoke, which saw a net total increase in residential areas permitting multi-tenant houses, from 4.3 km² to 56.3 km², but this appeared to be at the cost of reducing all of its maximum 10 room areas to 6 rooms. At this time, it is not clear as to why all the maximum 10 room areas in Etobicoke were reduced by 4 rather than having some increased by 2 to match the new cap intervals of the new regulatory framework. It would not be unprecedented in York, those areas previously allowing a maximum of 10 rooms saw both increases and decreases in the cap.

Below is a map of Etobicoke and York to highlight the changes that occurred for the areas that previously zoned for a maximum of 10 rooms in their multi-tenant houses.

Overall, there was an increase of total area zoned to permit multi-tenant houses, from 46.7 km² to 323.1 km², or by almost 600% (591.8%). The area permitting up to a maximum of 6 rooms increased by 1072.2%; maximum 12 rooms by 30.6%, and maximum 25 rooms by 23.9%. Multi-tenant houses with up to 10 rooms were eliminated entirely, either converted up to 12 rooms or down to 6 rooms, most notably in Etobicoke where all maximum 10 rooms were reduced to max 6 rooms, meaning 100% of the maximum 10 rooms areas were lost.

Implications

With the dramatic increase in area available to license as multi-tenant housing, it appears that the City of Toronto is looking to enrich the diversity of housing options available across the city – namely to increase the amount of low-income housing and increase density in residential areas. Multi-tenant housing is one of the most affordable housing options available for single people (Jeffords, 2024).

With this new framework, the City of Toronto will be able to better support both the tenants and landlords of multi-tenant houses, as the new regulations will hopefully bring multi-tenant houses up to code and give tenants more rights when they seek support. With the new regulatory framework, owners of multi-tenant houses will now have to get a licence, will be subject to inspections, and will need a property maintenance plan and have a process for tenants to request services. While it will take time for the full framework to come into effect, as well as for landlords to adapt to it, it is clear that the City is trying to make visible the unlicensed multi-tenant houses and harmonize the old multi-tenant housing bylaws that were not well adapted after amalgamation (Campsie, 2018).

There are some concerns that the new regulatory framework will cause the landlords to pass on the costs of renovating up to code and licensing onto the tenants, which is a difficult situation as tenants of multi-tenant houses are often low-income individuals (Jeffords, 2024). Another concern is that tenants may be evicted in order for the multi-tenant houses to come into compliance, as some current licensed or unlicensed multi-tenant houses may exceed their maximum number of permitted dwelling rooms based on their zoning which has changed under the new framework (Jeffords, 2024). These concerns may cause unintended consequences, such as landlords continuing to run their multi-tenant houses unlicensed and underground to avoid both the costs of renovation and eviction of their tenants.

The City has made funds available to help with renovations to meet the new standards and to reduce the chance of passing down these costs to tenants, but there is no funding that would cover operational costs of the multi-tenant houses that provide meals and other services for the personal care and health of residents (Jones, 2024). The City has also promised to work closely with owners of multi-tenant houses in the suburbs with more than six dwelling rooms to ensure that they are not shut down and are brought into compliance, and will look at each multi-tenant house on a case-by-case basis (Jeffords, 2024).

For more learnings and a deeper dive into the history and challenges behind Toronto’s rooming houses, please check out the Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership research paper by Philippa Campsie from 2018.

___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Data shown on the maps on this page are from the City of Toronto and OpenStreetMap. Jeff Allen helped edit the maps and graphics on this page. Code for this page is hosted on GitHub