Living together and also apart
Multi-generational housing is a growing trend that’s back with a new twist: independent spaces that can be isolated
A growing trend in home use is rising from a tradition that was once just the way we lived: multi-generational housing.
Even before the pandemic’s worldchanging effects, 20 per cent of Canadians were living in multi-generational housing, according to a Pew Research Center study. Canadian Census data indicates an increase of 37.5 per cent in multi-generational housing from 2001 to 2016, with the highest proportion — 17 per cent — in Toronto.
But following the virus’s deadly toll in nursing and retirement homes across the country, and the Canadian Armed Forces’ damning report on conditions in five long-term-care homes, more people are expected to include their aging parents — and/or financially challenged adult kids — in their homes.
“There are so many benefits to keeping a family unit close together, to share costs and support,” said Linda Kafka, a Certified Living in Place Professional (CLIPP) and Canadian expert on aging in place and wellness in the home.
“In-law suites are nothing new, but typically they were in basements, and I think the trend will incorporate fully functional suites on the main floor,” Kafka said.
Home designs allowing isolation or quarantine, she added, will be part of the new mix. “We have to look at how we can be together as a family and separate or isolate when we have to.”
The housing industry’s response to generational housing until now has been poor, says Leith Moore, former adjunct professor at the University of Waterloo’s school of Urban and Regional Planning, and principal and founder of R-Hauz Solutions Inc., a Toronto company that manufactures turnkey, factory-built laneway and midrise avenue housing.
“In Toronto, we’ve seen a real spike and interest in life-cycle housing,” said Moore.
“You have the ability to use your own land, buy a laneway house from us and in four months, it’s done and you can put your family in it or rent it.
“You can have something on the ground floor, such as an office, visitor suite or guest room. Or if you’re using the ground floor as a garage, it can easily be adapted to family living.
“This is the cheapest form of housing and is gentle density,” Moore added. “We can create 100,000 units a year. I think COVID is going to wake a lot of people up to the idea of having family close. Laneway houses are a solution, rather than fleeing to the exurbs.” R-Hauz’s laneway houses range from 800- to 1,200square-feet, priced at $330 to $350 per square foot, about half the price of a Toronto condo. Moore says R-Hauz’s other product, six-storey mass-timber townhouses designed for avenues, offers flexibility in the number of units (up to six) and mix of uses, and can also be a multi-generational solution: “With the six-storey, you could have all family, no family, some family.”
Toronto’s Gatti Group builds custom homes, additions and renovations. The company is CLIPP certified and currently has three multi-generation projects in the works.
“Many people are thinking, ‘How can I make my house adaptable to accommodate, potentially, three generations?’ It’s becoming the new norm,” said Tony Gatti, partner in the company with his brother, Joe. He said home designs must evolve to be more about flexibility and adaptability than esthetics, and to accommodate various ages and needs.
“We want parents in the home but with their independent unit with separate access,” says Gatti.
The Gattis have been incorporating features into their projects that allow aging in place, such as curbless showers, elevators, toilets with automatic bidet-type cleansing features, and motion-activated lighting tuned to circadian rhythms so people can navigate to the bathroom at night, for example, but still fall back asleep.
Gatti client Maria Amaral plans to expand her 750square-foot Toronto bungalow into a 2,000-sq.-ft., three-generation abode that will be coowned by her and her three grown children. Amaral will retire soon from her job as a clerk for the Toronto Police Service and will live in the house with her son, his girlfriend and their child (who currently live in the house’s basement apartment) and one of her daughters and her child. The renovation she has planned will add two storeys to expand the home to five bedrooms and 3-1/2 bathrooms. The basement apartment will be rented to a tenant.
“To buy a house of similar size (2,000 square feet) would cost about $1.5 million and I’m really attached to my neighbourhood,” says Amaral. With two of her children living under the same roof, she won’t have to be solely responsible for maintaining the large lot, and will have companionship and support. They will share common areas, such as the living room and kitchen, and have private areas on the other two floors.
Kafka said that due to COVID-19, designers will be looking at recovery spaces in the home and “our bedrooms will be put under the microscope.”
For instance, she noted, dedicated storage for medications — instead of the kitchen refrigerator — that would see lockable “cool drawers” installed in a bathroom or bedroom for medications or natural cosmetics. As well, Kafka said incorporating beverage/snack stations into bedrooms would reduce kitchen-bound traffic in a house.
While people working from home are discovering the need for rooms with doors for phone calls or Zoom meetings, Kafka says these spaces will also be important for residents’ private virtual consultations with doctors or other medical professionals. Two years ago, Marshall Homes started offering the FlexHouz, a multi-generational home at one of its Pickering sites. The design incorporates a bungalow for grandparents or adult children that sits inside a two-storey house and operates independently. Buyers of three of 18 homes at the site opted for FlexHouz plans, which fit on a 50-foot lot and cost about $1.6 million.
The FlexHouz will also be offered at Next, another Marshall Homes’ Pickering site, said company president Craig Marshall, but has been redesigned to fit on a 37-foot lot. Although pricing has yet to be determined since the project won’t launch until fall, Marshall said the homes will be less expensive than the first FlexHouz models due to the smaller lot size and will offer “privacy, proximity and value.
“You are getting two houses for one,” Marshall said. “You can keep Mom and Dad at home for life. “The FlexHouz wasn’t planned for the pandemic — it was more ‘Mom doesn’t want to live in a nursing home’ — but it is perfect for that, too, as there is egress to both houses. We’re quite excited about it.”
The City of Pickering has been supportive of the multi-generational concept, said Marshall, but notes under city rules, the houses are to be used for family generational living and the second unit cannot be rented out as an income property.
It’s not so easy in other municipalities, though, said Gatti, especially when renovating an existing house.
“It’s tough in a city like Toronto. The housing stock is there but it’s going to take some creative work from the city to allow certain things, like additional entrances to a house or to allow multiple areas for cooking. Municipalities need to be on board,” Gatti said.
Moore agrees that many municipalities need to adapt their policies and said very few Ontario cities allow secondary suites or laneway houses. He says another huge opportunity exists in Toronto to allow for coach houses to be built on top of existing garages in older neighbourhoods.
“COVID-19 is changing interior design, although (aging) baby boomers were already changing design,” said Kafka. “(The pandemic) has validated and opened our minds to a whole lot of things.
“I would love to see homes adapt to us so we don’t have to adapt to them.”