Couple blaze trail for laneway housing
First hurdle they faced was the absence of any city regulations for such a structure
AFTER SIX YEARS of planning, paperwork and writing cheques, Karin Dearness and Andy Stone have their new laneway house in the Kirkendall Neighbourhood.
We’ve been hearing about laneway houses for so long, it’s easy to forget the concept is only now being greenlit by municipalities.
Hamilton’s city council received a pilot project in June that paves the way for a new zoning bylaw allowing laneway houses. Toronto adopted a similar policy last month.
But Dearness and Stone were trailblazers. They wanted to make a small place for their in-laws to live. So they teamed up with Toms + McNally Design, with the idea of converting an old garage at the back of their property into a laneway house.
“It’s really just taking a basement apartment and moving it to a separate structure.”
EDWARD JOHN
Planner, City of Hamilton
“We had to go through a full rezoning as if we were a Walmart, and having to pay the same fees” KARIN DEARNESS
It was 2012 when they took the proposal to the city. They quickly learned that what they wanted to do didn’t exist. There was no zoning, no bylaw covering the building of such a structure.
As City of Hamilton planner Edward John describes it, “It’s really just taking a basement apartment and moving it to a separate structure.”
Clear as that is, there was no mechanism in 2012 to allow that to happen.
So, as Dearness describes it, they went back and forth with the city, exploring the possibility of a granny suite, or a garden suite, ideas that were rejected because they would be deemed temporary structures.
The only solution came with a big penalty.
“We had to go through a full rezoning as if we were a Walmart, and having to pay the same fees,” Dearness recalls.
The development charges and parkland dedication fees amounted to $51,000. It was as if they were building a new house in a subdivision.
“There was no fee structure for a secondary dwelling,” Dearness says. “If we were putting an apartment in our house, the fee would be $750.”
Remarkably, the couple has no hard feelings about the process. They believe in laneway houses, increased density in the city and a choice of smaller places to live.
Sitting in the completed 800square-foot laneway house (properly called a secondary dwelling unit), architect Phil Toms marvels at the patience of his clients over the past six years.
“It took longer than it needed, everyone agreed it’s a good idea, now let’s get on with it.”
The sleek, one-storey house retains some of the original brick from the garage, and maximizes light with big windows facing east. Within the 800 square feet, the architects designed a kitchen, living room, bedroom and bath. Ironically, says Toms, the hardest space to design was the small closet that houses the furnace, water heater, and washer and dryer. “It had to be big enough to walk in with a laundry basket.”
If the city adopts a bylaw allowing secondary dwellings adjoining laneways, they would be restricted to just 538 square feet. Window placement must protect neighbours’ privacy, and the laneway houses could not be severed and sold. The bylaw, which is part of a pilot project, is expected to go to council in October. It would only apply to lower Hamilton, but may expand as the city prepares to update all the residential zoning bylaws in 2019.
As the laneway housing bylaw gets refined, and the fee structure completed, there’s a chance Dearness and Stone could get a refund of some of the fees they paid. Ward 2 Coun. Jason Farr has asked staff to explore the feasibility.
In the meantime, the in-laws intended for the laneway house are happy in other accommodation. But as Karin Dearness sums up, “We were happy to build a good example of laneway housing. We believe in it.”