The Future of Housing – Laneway and Garden Suites

In this episode of Architecturally Speaking, host Ryan Schwartz speaks with architect Craig Race about housing alternatives beyond traditional homes, condos, and apartments. Craig, the co-founder of Landscape, shares insights on the laneway and garden suite movement in Toronto. Tune in to learn more about these innovative housing options and their impact on the architecture profession.

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Transcript

[Start of recorded material 00:00:00] 

[Music] 

Ryan:                [00:00:04] Hello and welcome. You’re listening to Architecturally Speaking, a new podcast series created by the Ontario Association of Architects. We’ll be pulling back the curtain to explore the architecture profession, what architects do, and how they're buildings affect our lives each and every day. 

My name is Ryan Schwartz, I'm a licenced architect in Ontario, and your host for the series. And today we're speaking with Craig Race about some housing alternatives and looking at some different options beyond your traditional homes, condos and apartments. So Craig is an architect in Toronto with his own practice, and he’s also a co-founder of Lanescape, which has been a leader in spearheading the laneway and garden suite movement in the Greater Toronto Area. 

So Craig, welcome. Thanks for joining us. 

Craig:                [00:00:45] Thanks for having me, Ryan. 

Ryan:                [00:00:48] So our first guest, she was a sole-practitioner architect, and our second guest worked at a large multi-national office, and you sort of land somewhere in the middle. So can you tell me a little bit what it’s like managing these different sort of mid-size business ventures that you have? 

Ryan:                [00:01:03] Yes, I wouldn't say we’re exactly in the middle of those two options. More closer to the sole-practitioner, but we do have partners here at Lanescape, and we're trying to get to multinational. We need laneways in other countries first, though. 

But no, it’s a joy. I mean technically I have two architecture firms, actually, and Lanescape is one that focuses solely on the highly replicable, production-based model of micro-homes, essentially. Laneway suites and garden suites, fairly isolated to the City of Toronto. So it’s very regimented and straightforward in terms of how we move people through our pipeline. 

My other firm, Craig Race architecture, that’s where we do custom homes, multiplexes, apartment buildings and the light, it’s far more varied, more of a boutique approach. You know, we have a much smaller team who have to wear more hats and be more adaptable. 

                          [00:02:04] So between those two practices it’s really been a joy for me to practice, because I get to see, you know, all sides of how architecture works. 

Ryan:                [00:02:13] That’s great and you’re a busy man. And you mentioned laneway suites and garden suites, and I think we’ll talk about those quite a bit today, so for those listening who don't know what they are, how are laneway suites and garden suites different than, say, a traditional home? And how are they different from one another? 

Craig:                [00:02:29] They’re not that different from a traditional home, other than they exist at the back of a lot instead of at the front of a lot. Toronto, somewhat recently passed a policy, which we had a hand in crafting, that allowed us to put houses of about 1,700 square feet or less on a property that has a laneway. It has to be smaller than the main house, and in many ways subservient to it. But from a functional perspective it operates like an independent home that can be accessed off the laneway. If you’re a resident of one, it’s like the laneway is your street rather than the main house. 

So they're pretty similar. Construction methodologies are similar, servicing methodologies are similar. Approvals are the same. We purposely tried to make it a policy that was accessible to homeowners, and that meant that we didn't want to reinvent the wheel. 

Ryan:                [00:03:26] That’s great, yes. So essentially they're just like a smaller, second property on your original – or second house, I should say, on your property. 

Craig:                [00:03:34] That’s right. And they don't always have to be small. They do have to be smaller than the main house, but we’ve designed, fully as of right bylaw-compliant laneway suites that are 2,400 square feet, including the basement. So we can easily – 

Ryan:                [00:03:49] That’s big. 

Craig:                [00:03:49] – do four or five bedroom suites with plenty of living space. They can accommodate families. You need the right kind of lot to support that size of building. But it’s totally possible. 

Ryan:                [00:03:59] Now you mentioned “as of right.” What do you mean when you say that? 

Craig:                [00:04:04] Well in most cities, but certainly here in Toronto, our zoning bylaws are archaic and not very logical as you compare them to what we need in our buildings today. So the zoning bylaws are rarely followed, especially with custom homes and multiunit, even high-rise towers, there’s no prescriptive methodology you can reasonably fit within to have a streamlined approvals process.

That is different for laneway suites in that the bylaws are current, they were created by not only the people inside of City Hall, but by architects and people in the private sector, to ensure that it was something that you can operate within. So that on the one hand you’re creating a form that follows the prescription and is respectful of your context. But also it allows you to go through a streamlined approvals process. You don't need minor variances. You can simply apply for your permit right away, [00:05:04] and as far as you fit within the allowable box you get your permit in just a few months instead of, like, a year or longer. 

Ryan:                [00:05:12] Right. And so it makes it a little more reasonable. And correct me, then, if I'm wrong, but you sort of had a hand, you said, in developing these bylaws in Toronto. So what’s the history of that? Take us back a little bit and how did all this come about? 

Craig:                [00:05:25] The bylaws went into effect here in Toronto in 2018, but the story of Lanescapes starts much earlier than that. In about 2013 one of our cofounders, Alex Sharpe, he purchased a property that had an illegal apartment in a garage at the back of a property. And he hired me to be his architect. And we went through the process of legalizing it and turning it into a home. And that was expensive, and it took a long time. We needed minor variances. It really was a process that only people who were wealthy and/or knowledgeable could access. It’s not like it was something that was going to be a solution for everyday homeowners. 

Keep in mind, while this was happening, over in Vancouver and even in Ottawa and a few other municipalities here in Canada, there were already laneway policies in effect. So we were really using their typology to apply to our case. And although we had to do it the hard way, it helped us develop a model for what we thought was going to be a solution that, if turned into a reasonable bylaw, could be rolled out across the City of Toronto. 

 So we started advocating with our local councillor, who brought on another councillor and we partnered with Evergreen and sort of created a team of people both in and out of City Hall, who talked ourselves with coming up with a policy that could be converted into an [as-a-right? 00:06:55] bylaw. We spent four years advocating for it and working with the private and public sectors to craft it. And in 2018 it went into effect. And now anyone in Toronto who has a property on a laneway has an as-of-right entitlement to construct a laneway suite. 

Ryan:                [00:07:13] That's amazing. So basically anyone that owns a property that meets the requirements that basically backs onto a laneway can build a laneway suite by going through the process without too much hassle compared to, say, five years ago. 

Craig:                [00:07:26] Exactly. And when that policy went into effect we established ourselves – or more likely pivoted from what was really an advocacy group to start into an architecture firm. And now we get design and approvals for clients. We also recently started a construction arm of Lanescape, so we're hoping to start building our own projects this spring. 

And Toronto has really evolved even beyond that, which we can't take credit for – in the planning department here at City Hall, has all kinds of other neighbourhood infill efforts they're undertaking, the one that affects us most is the garden suite policy where they recently crafted a policy that allows any, even if you’re not on a laneway, to construct a second home in your backyard. So. All of a sudden every single residential property in Toronto has an entitlement for a second home. And it’s exciting. You know, like we’re coming up on the holidays here and it really [00:08:26] feels like Christmas for architects with all these new policies they're coming up with. It’s refreshing to see City Hall actually trying to solve housing issues through progressive policies like this. 

Ryan:                [00:08:38] Why do you think it took so long? What was the resistance to this beforehand? Like it was just, “This is the way things have always been done’? or was it like an emergency access situation, or a zoning problem? What kind of held all this back? 

Craig:                [00:08:52] It was really all of those things. There was a group that tried to get a laneway policy approved, several years before we tried. And unfortunately council wasn't friendly to it at that time. I think that was partly because there were some functional issues that didn't get resolved. Like how do you service these thing? How big can they be? We really made an effort to come up with those solutions, so that the policy we put forward made sure that Toronto Hydro didn't have to change what they did, and Canada Post doesn't have to change what they do. We were able to work with existing infrastructure in a way that was logical. 

And in addition to that, there’s just been more and more pressure on the housing market here in Toronto. I mean people are facing affordability issues, we're having trouble with supply constraints here. And for a long time homeowners in Toronto have been the victims of housing [00:09:52] growth. You know, they were living in the shadow of towers and having their houses bulldozed for hi-res buildings. This is a policy that allows homeowners to start to become part of the solution for housing in the city. And it’s really exciting, and it’s organic and it’s grassroots. And it’s helping everyone contribute to housing supply, rather than just large scale developers. 

Ryan:                [00:10:13] That’s great. And that was going to be my next question, is, why is this even important? But you kind of answered it right there in that you hear so much about the housing crisis these days, and this is just a nice way to densify a city without adding towers here and there. You’re sort of gently densifying, right? You’re filling in the nooks and crannies of the city. 

Craig:                [00:10:31] Exactly. The missing middle approach. Although at this scale we like to call it the missing little. And to contextualize – 

Ryan:                [00:10:40] I was going to mean by the “missing middle”? Sorry to jump in there. 

Craig:                [00:10:44] Well you know, Toronto’s also pursuing multiplex approvals and small midrise buildings, infill apartment buildings, in different forms of policies here. So that’s something that’s coming down the pike. 

But I do want to contextualize what the missing little actually looks like here in Toronto, like, next year our goal is to get design and approvals for about a hundred laneway suites and garden suites. And we're just one of many architects doing this. So we're expecting at least 200 units a year to be happening in the immediate future. Right now in Vancouver they're building about 500 units a year with laneway suites. 

And to sort of imagine what that looks like, that’s the equivalent of two high-rise buildings being constructed invisibly in our existing neighbourhoods every single year by everyday homeowners. There are developers that are trying to get in on this, but it really is people who already on the lands and already live in the house that are the ones undertaking it and benefiting from it most. 

Ryan:                [00:11:46] That’s great. It’s kind of just this quiet densification that it’s not really disrupting the rest of the city, right? You don't even realize it’s happening, but it’s slowly activating these laneways and turning these laneways into streets, which is kind of nice too. That’s a little added benefit.

Craig:                [00:12:02] Absolutely, and what’s ironic is we’ve had a weird population growth trend here in Toronto where our single family home neighbourhoods have has shrinking populations for decades, so if anything, this is just balancing our population growth here in the city. You know, 20,000 people a year move to Toronto, yet the majority of our land area has a shrinking population. That just doesn't make any sense -

Ryan:                [00:12:25] [Unintelligible 00:12:25]. 

Craig:                [00:12:25] - and this is one of many policies that's going to allow our population distribution to equalize across the city, and really take advantage of our existing infrastructure and neighbourhood amenities in a way that we weren't able to before. 

Ryan:                [00:12:39] That’s great. So what are some of the benefits? And we've covered a bunch of things, but then some things that come to mind immediately for me are things like multi-generational living. Affordability. If you, say, buy a house and you build one of these laneway suites, or a garden suite and you rent it out so you can kind of offset your mortgage, what else comes to mind in terms of the benefits? 

Craig:                [00:12:59] Those are the big ones. We like to say we have three types of clients. The first, is like you say, someone looking for a multi-gen solution, whether it’s an aging child who wants to have a home away from home, or a home at home. 

Ryan:                [00:13:14] [Unintelligible 00:13:14] 

Craig:                [00:13:14] You know, an aging parent who wants to move back in. That’s a big one for us. The other is simply someone who wants to be a landlord and offset their mortgage. I would say about half of our clients are people just looking to produce revenue from their laneway suite. And especially since COVID hit, we’ve seen a big growth in people who want just personal use space. The most ostentatious form of that is like a sports den or some kind of entertainment space. But a lot of home office solutions, guest suites for visitors and the like, that’s a growing segment here. 

And with more and more people working from home, it’s just more and more logical for that to happen. Especially if we couple some of those things together. A lot of our clients want the ground floor for their office, and the second floor to be an apartment they can rent out to offset their mortgage. We can combine solutions very easily in this typology. 

Ryan:                [00:14:14] That’s perfect. And are there any kind of risks or problems or anything that come up. I mean obviously it’s going to cost a little bit of money to do this. [Unintelligible 00:14:25] maybe some privacy concerns with neighbours. That’s a good question, actually. What have neighbours’ reactions been? Do you get positive feedback, negative feedback? 

Craig:                [00:14:36] Well as you know neighbours are always very open-minded and accommodating, so they love it. No, I'm kidding – 

Ryan:                [00:14:42] Sometimes [laughter], sometimes. 

Craig:                [00:14:45] The usual neighbourhood impacts are always present no matter what you’re building, and this is no exception. The beauty is that it’s as-of-right, so you don't have to go through a public hearing process where your neighbours can say nasty things to you. If you follow the prescriptions in the bylaw it’s your entitlement to do this, because we need housing, and it makes it a lot easier to go through. Not only just from a functional perspective, but emotionally. It’s always tough when you have to go through a hearing and have your neighbours say nasty things. So by avoiding that – 

Ryan:                [00:15:18] It’s an uncomfortable situation, yes. 

Craig:                [00:15:19] Yes, it in a way makes things easier for the neighbourhood. But in terms of privacy, they're pretty good. The bylaws have prescriptions for angular planes and the limitations of windows facing other yards. So it's rare that you have any kind of view into adjacent properties. Certainly anything expansive. The majority of our designs have lots of glass on the laneway where you’re looking onto a public realm. And then only protected openings facing any other direction. 

Ryan:                [00:15:50] OK. And things like emergency access and utilities, we touched on emergency access a little bit. How are these things solved? Because I think that’s one thing that people maybe are aware of as a concern, is if you're a little house tucked in the backyard and it’s on fire, and the firetruck has to show up or they don't know where to go, how is that all solved? 

Craig:                [00:16:14] So the emergency access requirements are very straightforward. You have to provide a certain width path from the curb where a firetruck would pull up to, to your laneway or garden suite. You know, it’s similar to any kind of means of egress in the building code, and that it can't be unreasonably sloped or have large steps or anything like that. It has to be code compliant. And there are maximum travel distances of 45 or 90 meters. So there are solutions in place that are very straightforward, and pretty easy to comply with. 

You do have to have the right site condition, like a row house, for example, may have difficulty accommodating emergency access. But it’s pretty rare. Well over two-thirds of the properties we review are complaint. Closer to about 75 per cent. 

Ryan:                [00:17:08] OK. And I should mention living distance agreements. And maybe you can expand on that if, you know, speaking of neighbours and getting along with neighbours and how that works. 

Craig:                [00:17:19] Yes, so if you do have a tight side yard connected where you can't accommodate the means of egress on your own property. There is a mechanism that allows you to expand that means of egress onto your neighbour’s property by some dimension. And in order to do that you do need your neighbour to sign what’s called the limiting distance agreement here, which is a very straightforward systematized process that City Hall came up with where you register an easement onto both properties. The City is a party to that. In many cases we have to provide an inducement to neighbours, whether it’s a small financial inducement, or fixing up their fence and side yard or something like that. Which frankly is just good practice when you’re building in neighbourhoods. 

But you're right, there are some cases where if your lot can't accommodate the emergency access entirely on your property, and your neighbour is going to be a jerk, they can stop you from doing it. Again, that's a pretty rare case. And it’s usually [00:18:19] easy to avoid. 

And if you’re really concerned about it you can always renovate your main house to provide the egress fully on your property. 

Ryan:                [00:18:26] Add a little more space. Yes. And if you were to build a laneway suite – I'm just thinking going through some of these other potential risks, I guess if you’re buildings another property or another house on your property, does that impact your taxes? Things like that. I'm assuming it does. 

Craig:                [00:18:43] It sure does. Yes. I mean impact reassesses every property that has a building permit on it. So much like any house renovation or adding a basement apartment, for example, you will be reassessed upon completion and your property taxes will go up. We are finding that the tax adjustment for a laneway suite is incremental to that of a main house, because it is viewed more like a secondary suite in that respect. So you’re not paying as high of a property tax on a per square foot basis for a laneway or a garden suite like you would for a main house. And it’s usually worth it because the revenue you get from them will more than cover it. 

Ryan:                [00:19:25] Right. You’re not doubling your taxes or anything. 

Craig:                [00:19:27] [Nothing? 00:19:27] like that. 

Ryan:                [00:19:29] And what about – yes, what would you say – and I don't have a good answer for this so maybe you do. In terms of adding housing stock to the market and increasing affordability, I guess one problem that does come up is that you have to basically own a property in order to build one of these already, so that’s a little bit of a Catch 22 in that you’re providing some cheaper housing potentially, but you have to already own housing to provide it. So what would you say to someone that argues that? 

Craig:                [00:19:58] You always have to own property in order to build anything. [Laughter]. And you mention on more affordable housing as being a lynch pin for this argument. Laneway and garden suites do have a policy that if you tie the rental rates to a below-market index, the City will give you a $50,000 forgivable loan to help with construction. So there are capital A affordable programs in place. In general, though, very few of our clients tend to take advantage of those. They'd rather operate at market rates, which certainly does provide expensive housing. All housing in Toronto is expensive. 

And our response to that is, we still need that. Like, there are a lot of middle income people who can't afford a down payment on a house. But, they need two or three bedrooms in the neighbourhood of – 

Ryan:                [00:20:54] [Unintelligible 00:20:54] 

Craig:                [00:20:54] – the schools and parks in a way that can accommodate children. And this provides a very civilized, detached rental solution where we didn't have one before. So, you know, it’s not going to help the full spectrum of housing affordability I Toronto, but it’s certainly addressing an important segment of it that in my opinion has been long overlooked. We still need solutions on both ends of the spectrum beyond what laneway and garden suites can do. But this is one of many tools in the toolbox that I think is going to help Toronto become a city with a far more diverse selection of housing. 

Ryan:                [00:21:31] I agree, because even if you’re not necessarily providing the cheapest housing, you are adding to the housing stock, which is what we need right now, right? So that’s a good thing. 

Craig:                [00:21:40] Exactly. And there are other inducements that the City provides, not only as an as-of-right approval process, just more affordable than one that requires minor variances, but laneway and garden suites are exempt from development charges. They don't have parking requires. They've infused other aspects into the process that makes it a lot easier to build than any other type of housing. 

Ryan:                [00:22:02] So they've really made it as accessible as it can be, and it’s a great option, potentially, to fill in this housing gap. 

Craig:                [00:22:09] Exactly. 

Ryan:                [00:22:12] And so a lot of this is based in Toronto. You did mention Ottawa. Are there any other cities in Ontario that come to mind? Because obviously some cities don't have lanes, and maybe that’s more of a garden suite issue then. But any other cities in Ontario leading the charge in this kind of thing? 

Craig:                [00:22:29] Many cities in Ontario have some kind of secondary suite policy. Detached secondary suite. Not all municipalities have it yet, but almost all of them do. There is provincial policy requiring all municipalities to create garden or laneway suite policies in their cities. Hamilton has adopted one. You know, Guelph, Cobourg, you name it. Lots of cities have some kind of provision for it. 

You don't hear about it quite as much because the rental markets aren't as strong in secondary markets, so the volume just isn’t there. But they certainly exist and it’s growing in popularity. It’s actually provincially mandated. 

Ryan:                [00:23:09] That’s great. That’s good to hear. So you’re going to be seeing these things popping up all over the place, basically. 

Craig:                [00:23:13] Exactly. And of course like broader in Canada and the United States, there are many cities with very progressive and high volunteer housing options. Vancouver, where you are is a gold standard for that. Portland, Austin, they're really becoming popular. 

Ryan:                [00:23:33] And what about rural areas and towns, like, obviously the densification’s not as much of an issue, but if you live out in the country, I guess it’s just this idea of a detached suite. Any other options come to mind, or is that – I guess the demand just wouldn't be there as much. 

Craig:                [00:23:52] Well it’s been interesting, since the garden suite policy was enacted here in Toronto, we're starting to see this kind of housing move into the periphery, like Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke, where there aren’t laneways. Those tend to be far more automobile-oriented, suburban-like communities. And our clients we're getting in those areas tend to be less in the rental/landlord pool, and more in the multi-gen or personal use pool. Since people aren’t commuting to work anymore, having a home office that’s not attached to your house is a really nice thing to have. Or somewhere where you can accommodate loved ones when they come to visit or come to stay. 

I think that’s the solution that’s really going to benefit rural and suburban communities more so than helping with your mortgage. 

Ryan:                [00:24:44] Totally. And they typically have more space for this kind of thing too, right? Like, larger lots, more backyard. So it might actually be easier in a lot of these cases. 

Craig:                [00:24:52] More opportunity for optimum solar exposure and hitting Net Zero or [passive? 00:24:56] house with these things. 

Ryan:                [00:25:00] Yes, totally. And what about other countries? Like Europe comes to mind where people have been – it’s tougher actually to distinguish, I think, between a street and a laneway or an alley, and people – you know, these winding streets and people have been living there for potentially centuries, but is this a model that we’ve kind of adopted from other places that have been doing this for a long, long time? 

Craig:                [00:25:21] I mean yes, indirectly. You know, Europe has the luxury of having had a diverse typology of housing since its inception. Like, thousands of years ago. And I really think a lot of that has to do with the fact that they were pre-automobile societies where just inherently when you have to walk places, you’re more likely to fit alternative types of housing into unique spaces. So I mean Europe doesn't need the solution because they don't have this problem. 

Ryan:                [00:25:51] That's fair. 

Craig:                [00:25:51] Here in North America we're kind of seeing a rebound from relying on the car to get from work to home to relying on our feet and bicycles, and all of a sudden we need solutions to infill our existing communities, whether it’s missing little, like laneway or garden suites, or missing middle like row houses, stack town houses et cetera. We’re kind of trying to catch up to Europe in that respect. So, they don't need our solutions. We need their problems. 

Ryan:                [00:26:24] Exactly, the pendulum is swinging back the other way for us. So. You touched on zoning a little bit, and I just want to get your opinion on things like municipal zoning and the implications of that, and whether you think zoning is a good thing. I mean it has some benefits for sure, but I think there’s also some negatives. So maybe you could just expand on your thoughts on zoning. 

Craig:                [00:26:45] Well like any policy there’s good and there’s bad policy. I personally think the laneway suite policy is excellent. It’s relatively minimal in its requires, but maximal in how it controls the size and shape of laneway suites. It has great elements embedded into it, such as angular planes and dormer width requires that ensure we preserve privacy. But all that’s embedded in a really simple, straightforward accessible list of requires that mean everyday homeowners can access it. 

I actually think by contrast here in Toronto, the garden suite policy is a lot less straightforward. It’s harder for us to really assess what kind of garden suite can be built quickly. For example – 

Ryan:                [00:27:34] A little more complex. 

Craig:                [00:27:34] – there are three separate requirements for how big the footprint of a garden suite could be. Like, that just doesn't make any sense. So it’s still good, but it’s less good. And then obviously when you look at most of the other zoning here in Toronto it’s an absolute joke. It’s impossible to comply with it in any kind of reasonable way that produces a building that achieves modern and programmatic standards. So we’ve got the whole spectrum here and ultimately I consider myself lucky to have a lot of laneway suites that are really easy to operate within. 

Ryan:                [00:28:07] Yes, because on one hand, zoning will prevent, you know, a factory from opening up beside a daycare. But it will also really limit the amount of housing that you can put in some of these places that could use it. So it’s kind of a double-edged sword. Right? Maybe it just needs updating. Is that the answer? 

Craig:                [00:28:24] I think so. And you’re completely right. Zoning has been what’s led to our monoculture of building types here in Toronto. The tall-and-sprawl methodology that we've been relying on for so long, that’s led to declining population in our zones, in our residential zones. A lot of the policy we’re seeing now is starting to counteract that. It’s starting to reinvigorate our what were actually declining neighbourhoods. Although they are really great neighbourhoods here. And just make sure that we're staying vital top to bottom. 

Ryan:                [00:29:03] OK. That's good to know. And just before we jump into some quick little rapid-fire questions here, just to touch on some other sort of housing alternatives, things that you hear about a lot, tiny homes. Any thoughts on these? I mean some might consider a laneway suite a tiny home. So maybe they’re different, maybe they're not. I don't know, what’s your take on tiny homes? 

Craig:                [00:29:24] They're great. You know, they're part of the solution to our housing needs as well. And you're right that on a really small lot you concern build a really small laneway or garden suite that definitely fits in what we would think of as a tiny home. So they cross over with what we do pretty closely. 

Ryan:                [00:29:43] And then, not to be confused with trailers, which is, you know, on wheels potentially, so then that’s a mobile. And then you’re getting into things like you may not need building permits. But then you probably can't put it on a lot because – by itself, I should say, because it’s not a permanent structure. So there is some grey area in there. 

What about things like co-living and shared communal spaces? I think this is something that there’s a lot of potential room here for growth. But it’s not something that has really been adopted, at least in North America. 

Craig:                [00:30:18] Yes, we're starting to see that expand quite a bit in the multiunit typology. Like especially small apartment buildings. A lot of our clients who want to do those are exploring co-living solutions where you have a very small living unit that’s yours, and then very big and shared common space. I definitely foresee that as being something that will be the future of housing. As well as length of time you spend in a house is something we're going to change. Short-term rentals, as short as a few days or weeks or months is something that our current policies don't really account for. And if anything they prohibit. 

You know, right now we think of those things as, like, rooming houses and Airbnbs that just get NIMBYs all worked up to fight. But I think they are very civilized solutions in between those typologies and the single-family home that we absolutely need. And that there’s going to be a huge market for in the near future. So that’s going to be blown up in the near future. 

Ryan:                [00:31:27] For sure. I agree. I think it’s a great way to really add some affordability again into these housing solutions where you have a handful of potentially friends or couples or families that get together and maybe build a house together, but you’re really cutting down the cost by maybe only have one kitchen. Things like that. So you’re really limiting some of the costs but you essentially have your own house still. So that's a nice potential solution. 

All right. So we're going to jump into some little rapid fire questions here. So on a scale of 1 to 10, how messy is your desk right now? 

Craig:                [00:32:04] Twelve. 

Ryan:                [00:32:09] [Laughter]. Any favourite buildings or cities to visit in terms of architecture? 

Craig:                [00:32:14] That list is too long to include on this podcast, so I'm just going to go with Toronto. 

Ryan:                [00:32:20] That's my favourite city to visit. Bonus points for Ontario. I like it. 

Craig:                [00:32:25] I love Toronto. To a weird degree. And my favourite building here has to be the ago. I love Frank Gehry. He’s a Canadian treasure. And I also love saying that because I know a lot of architects just get all riled up when I say I love Frank Gehry, so I say that as much to get a reaction out of people, although I do really love his work. 

Ryan:                [00:32:47] It’s nice to see him building at home. Which is kind of nice. With no budget or building code constraints, what would you change about your house? 

Craig:                [00:32:59] I would add radiant floor heating, which I had on my last house and I don't have in this house. And I miss it a little bit. Especially in the bathrooms, having those toasty toes – 

Ryan:                [00:33:15] Some warm feet in the mornings. 

Craig:                [00:33:15] – it’s just so nice. It’s a comfort you can't live without. 

Ryan:                [00:33:20] All right. And fill in the blank here. The best buildings are blank. 

Craig:                [00:33:27] Contextually appropriate. But – 

Ryan:                [00:33:30] Good answer. 

Craig:                [00:33:30] – aggressive. [Laughter]. 

Ryan:                [00:33:33] All right, all right. So for someone considering building a laneway home or something similar, where do they start? What do they need? Where do they even begin? 

Craig:                [00:33:45] Well anyone looking to do custom homes or multiplexes, send me something at info@craigrace.com. And if you’re looking to do a laneway or a garden suite, over at Lanescape we have a free property assessment tool that we provide to anybody. Send your address to info@lanescape.ca and our team will turn around a report in about 24 hours. 

Ryan:                [00:34:09] OK. So that's a good place to get in touch. Anything else you’d like to plug or anything that people can go to check out your work or to get in touch? 

Craig:                [00:34:20] I think that just about does it. I do want to say thank you so much for having me, and for creating this podcast. I think it’s really cool to start learning about other practices in Ontario. And it’s an honour to be here. The laneway policy was really something that was sled by architects and something I think our industry should be really proud of. Like, not just for our office. There were a lot of architects that contributed to it. It really gave me faith that our industry is contributing to positive housing solutions in Toronto and all across Ontario. So it’s an exciting time to be in our space, and thank you for helping propagate great ideas. 

Ryan:                [00:34:58] It’s nice that we're actually making a difference and my pleasure. Thanks for taking the time. 

So that wraps up this episode of Architecturally Speaking. We've been chatting with Craig Race. He’s an architect in Toronto. Thanks again for sharing your time and expertise. We're recording many more of these podcast episodes over the weeks to come. If you have a question about architecture or you know someone who would make a great guest, or you just want to offer some feedback, you can send us an email at podcast@oaa.on.ca. You can also find out more about the Ontario Association of Architects and how it regulates architecture throughout the province by visiting oaa.on.ca. 

And if you enjoyed this episode, tell your friends. Architecturally Speaking is available wherever you get your podcasts, and also on the OAA’s YouTube channel. Be sure to check that out for the full video version. And like and subscribe to be notified when the next episode is released. So until next time, I'm Ryan Schwartz and this is Architecturally Speaking. 

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