Former Toronto church converted to luxury lofts amid housing supply push

A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last centurybeing a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.

Dubbed The Brunswick Lofts, the 225 Brunswick projecthas been six years in the making, real estate developer Jeff Kopas told CBC News.

"It's missing middle housing...it's not a house renovation and it's not a 10-storey condo building, it's something in between," Kopas said. The goal, he said, was to create something unique but also suit the feel of the neighbourhood.

"Missing middle"housing typically refers tobuildings that have a higher density than a single-family houseand a lower density than a high-rise, according to the city.

"It's seven luxury units that are all two-storiesand each one has its own front door and its ownconnection to the street," Kopas said. "I think it's beautiful and it adds a real home to the neighbourhood versus a box in the sky."

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But with one listingpriced at $1.7 million, Kopas recognizes the homes aren't geared toward affordability. Still, he believes Toronto needs more such housing to make it more vibrant and livable.

And he's not alone.

City 'looking at every opportunity' for more housing

Gord Perks, city councillor and chair of the housing committee, says the city has been working to create more missing middle infill housing as part of its housing plan.

"This is a form of housing, it's not affordable housing. But at the city, we're working on what we call expanding housing options,giving people more choices within neighbourhoods," he said.

According to the city, there are 298 low-rise projects, 388 mid-rise projects and 1,051 high-rise projects that propose residential development in the development pipeline, meaning projects with any development activity over the last five years.

"The cityreally islooking at every opportunity. We're putting in the permissions to build apartment buildings where they didn't use to exist," Perks said.

"Those sort of low-rise, four to six-storey apartment buildings, they are harder to shoehorn in."

A June 2024 studyaims to accelerate the supply of housing through removing policy and zoning barriers to support the goal of achieving (or exceeding) the provincial housing target of 285,000 new homes over the next 10 years.

According to the study, the plan seeks toadvance infill housing (or missing middle housing) in the city's apartment neighbourhoods through establishing best practices and developing new tools to simplify and streamline the approval process for infill housing on existing apartment sites.

'Extreme highrisesand single-family sprawl'

Ken Greenberg, principal of Greenberg Consultants, saysto address the housing crisis, the city needs a mix of diverse housing and government intervention.

"Missing middle housing is entirely useful and we need it in the older neighbourhoods,"Greenberg said, adding Toronto used to have many more low and mid-rise housing decades ago than it does today.

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"We haveshifted to extreme highrisesand single-family sprawl."

However, Greenberg says missing middlehousing isn't the panacea for affordability.

He says in the 1970s and 1980s, other affordable housing optionsincluded co-ops and non-profit housing, initiatives led by the federal government.

"I think if you combinegovernment involvement and the missing middle, that's the ideal solution."