New Approach to Zoning for Apartment Neighbourhoods

planningAlliance and ERA Architects are founding partners of the non-profit Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R), which collaborated with United Way Toronto on a report around zoning issues in Toronto’s tower communities. In September, the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) released the report, which is called Strong Neighbourhoods and Complete Communities: A New Approach to Zoning for Apartment Neighbourhoods. The report is available here.

After considering the report, the City of Toronto’s planning and growth management committee approved staff’s proposal of a new residential apartment-commercial zone (RAC zone) that will allow certain apartment neighbourhoods to grow a little differently than they did before by permitting certain commercial and retail uses on site.  

City of Toronto zoning by-law and environmental planning acting director Joe D’Abramo was excited when speaking to NRU about the proposed new zoning. “We haven’t done anything like this that I can remember,” D’Abramo said. “Think about that, right? We’re creating a whole new zoning category. We’re going out to find sites with which to zone them. The last time that was done was when we were doing greenfi eld stuff. This is quite momentous,” he said.

The report outlines a proposed new approach to zoning the city's apartment neighbourhoods in a manner that facilitates renewal, and the evolution of these communities into more complete communities. The report is co-authored by Jason Thorne, planningAlliance Principal and one of the founding directors of CUG+R.  The report went to city council for consideration on October 30-31.