A neglected old warehouse in a downtown back alley: hardly the makings of a family home or business office.

And yet an ambitious pair of young architects, eager to test their design and construction skills, transformed the site into a contemporary live/work showplace.

“The building was so simple and blank it became an easy canvas to start from,” Peter Tan says about the genesis of Courtyard House. It’s the home he and wife Christine Ho Ping Kong created for their two young children and architecture and woodworking firm, Studio Junction. Tucked behind another home on Davenport Rd., the two-storey 30-by-40 foot building is the epitome of laneway housing. Compact, efficient and thoughtfully designed, it illustrates how a forgotten urban nook can rise again as residential space.

For developers Vivienne Ziner and her architect husband Glenmorris Cohen, laneway is also the way to go.

The six, light-filled townhomes of The Jaedon Mews, which their company UrbanQuest Inc. just built on a semi-private lane in Toronto’s Little Italy neighbourhood, exemplify a “much-needed, creative approach” to the city’s housing issues, says Ziner.

The four-storey townhomes sit on the site of a former church on Achtman Lane, which jogs off Shaw St., just north of College St. Tucked behind another UrbanQuest development of seven townhomes called DeZINE, they maximize the lot’s leftover space.

“These areas are the soul of the city,” Ziner says of laneways that are close to transit, shops and main streets.

After buying the property in 2001, UrbanQuest spent years struggling to get their project approved.

“The city was pretty difficult about how they’d let us develop it,” says Ziner, the company’s president.

The boutique developer faced a “great creative challenge” in designing Jaedon, where “every inch counts,” according to Ziner. “Small has to be beautiful, clever and magical.”

But living spaces that front onto a lane or alley are a tough sell to the city.

To begin with, lanes must be wide enough for servicing and access by garbage, fire and emergency vehicles. Other considerations include privacy, parking, outdoor space and costly connections to the main street for water, power and sewage.

Toronto handles applications on a case-by-case basis, according to Gregg Lintern, director of community planning.

“Laneway housing needs to be considered in the context of the prevailing character of neighbourhoods,” he said in an email, adding “more conversation about the issue is likely in the near future.”

That would be good news to the Ontario Home Builders’ Association and national think tank the Pembina Institute, authors of a recent report touting the benefits of laneway housing in the GTA.

“Laneway houses, garden suites and infill townhouses are examples of small-scale housing options that can help address the affordability gap near transit,” the report noted.

In Canada, Vancouver leads the way with more than 1,000 downsized but highly efficient homes often located where unsightly garages once stood.

Zoning bylaws in the country’s priciest city allow laneway houses of up to 1-½ storeys behind most single, detached homes but limit them to family or rental use.

Tan and Ho Ping Kong, who admired multi-use laneways during travels to high-density cities like Bangkok and Tokyo, applied the concept to the 40-by-90-foot lot they bought on a tight budget 15 years ago.

Using three of the existing warehouse’s concrete block walls as a base, Tan built Courtyard House during a five-year experimental project. The finished product, on the east side of Toronto’s The Junction neighbourhood, provides 2,000 square feet of living and studio/office space. It is organized around courtyards on two levels, with inward-facing windows.

Because another small street terminated at the laneway and brought water and sewer lines close to the site, the city’s works department gave a prompt green light, saving them time, Tan says. Still, he adds, “the city could be more supportive” of such projects.

Another example of a successful laneway transformation exists in midtown Toronto where a back-alley blacksmith’s shop was repurposed as a two-storey, skylit residence called “40R Laneway House.”

Creation of the small-footprint living space clad in salvaged rusted metal was possible because the existing building pre-dated current regulations, allowing it to be grandfathered in, says Meg Graham, principal of Toronto-based Superkül architecture firm, which did the rebuild.

“It’s critically important to utilize any piece of ‘leftover’ land wisely, otherwise, it’s just waste,” she maintains.

Superkül designed another small but mighty home, known as Gradient House, on the tiny lot of a fire-ravaged bungalow in Kensington Market.

Because both projects were reconstructions of existing buildings, they didn’t encounter huge obstacles, Graham says. But limited site access required contractors to be “more adept and resourceful than your average contractor.”

The laneway proponent hangs out a laundry list of factors supporting this type of housing, ranging from changing demographics to increased urbanization.

“It’s an important piece in growing a sustainable, livable city where a diversity of housing options is available,” says Graham, noting that approvals and cost are usually the biggest deterrents.

A downtown pilot project is wrestling with those obstacles as it navigates the city’s permitting and approvals process. The University of Toronto, which has partnered with Evergreen, Earth Development and Thomas Payne Architects, hopes to build lowrise infill development on property it owns in the Huron St./Sussex Ave. neighbourhood.

But a rezoning application is a lengthy ordeal requiring a submission fee and multiple studies that could cost between $40,000 and $70,000 for a project like theirs, says Jo Flatt, senior projects manager with Evergreen, a national charity that runs the Brick Works in Toronto.

U of T is considering designs for prototyped homes of between 700 and 1,000 square feet, she says, describing laneway housing as a “gentle way” of increasing density while taking advantage of existing transit connections and amenities.

The philosophy meshes with The Laneway Project’s mandate to beautify and bring laneways back to life. The team of urban planners and designers is working with residents, businesses and municipal partners on various projects that could involve landscaping, artwork and recreational space.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Toronto’s unused laneways “have a huge amount of untapped potential,” the non-profit organization explains on its website, thelanewayproject.ca.

It’s a message echoed by Vivienne Ziner as UrbanQuest hands over the keys to townhome buyers this month.

“It’s about real urban living,” she says. “There are miles and miles of laneways, so let responsible, good developers, designers and architects come up with things that are really magical,” she says.

Just down the lane

The laneway townhomes of The Jaedon Mews are on Achtman Lane, near Shaw and College Sts. in Little Italy.

They rise four levels, starting with the basement with enclosed garage, den and bathroom; entertainment floor with 12-foot ceilinged kitchen, living room, dining room and patio; third level with two bedrooms, laundry and bathroom; top floor with penthouse master suite and balcony.

Each home has a floating glass staircase, three skylights, Italian Scavolini kitchen and engineered hardwood flooring.

Developer: UrbanQuest Inc.

Architect: Glenmorris Cohen

Landscape Architect: Alexander Budrevics & Associates

Size: Four-storey townhomes from 1,678 to 1,771 sq. ft.

Price: $1,299,300

Info: jaedonmews.com, urbanquestinc.com, 416-480-2001, pm@urbanquestinc.com

Lanes, explained

Toronto has about 3,000 laneways covering more than 250 kilometres that were originally built for deliveries, service and parking for the houses they bordered.

The earliest Toronto lanes were built in the mid-1800s in the days of the horse.

The average laneway house in Vancouver is 590 sq. ft.

The average North American home is 2,438 sq. ft.

Overseas newcomers touring Toronto recently were astounded to learn that laneway garages were homes for cars not people.

Vancouver’s lane houses have been called “Fonzie suites” after TV’s Happy Days character The Fonz, who lived in the Cunningham family’s garage apartment.