The FlexPlex finally gets its day in Toronto

by Dave LeBlanc

The recently built FlexPlex, at 19 Burlington St. in Toronto, looks like a handsome, single-family home when looked at from the street, albeit a very contemporary one with a cladding of concrete panels. It has three units with the owners on the main floor and basement and tenants in units on the second and third floors.

There was a time of darkness in Toronto. A time when development charges sent all but the bravest souls scurrying into their single-family homes when talk turned to multiunit dwellings on tiny lots. When so large was the flaming hoop one had to jump through for a laneway house, only those with friends at city hall (who could lend them an asbestos suit) could entertain the thought. A time when the enlightened were laughed at, or, worse, told to decamp to Vancouver, where hippie bylaw-makers allowed just about anything to be built.

Mike Manning was one such pioneer: “When we applied for the building permit, I had to pay a development charge – for the privilege of building one more unit to make this a duplex – that was $112,000.”

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