How Toronto's planning history is influencing its walkable future

Tucked inside Toronto’s leafy, quiet and private residential neighbourhoods are facades that tell the story of another time in the city’s urban planning history. 

Until the early years of the 1900s, the city’s ability to make certain decisions was curtailed by the province, like choosing where businesses went and what kinds of commercial uses could happen on which plots of land. As a result, those living in the muddy, burgeoning city of 19th century Toronto experienced a mix of business and residential buildings that present-day Torontonians haven’t seen for decades.

Paul Hess, a professor in the geography and planning department at the University of Toronto, said in a pre-automobile world, it was a trend seen in cities across North America. 

“There were little factories in the neighbourhood, there were bakeries, people had horses and they had their carts and they delivered milk,” said Hess. “There was all that kind of stuff that not only supported everyday life, but people were making their living in the neighbourhoods.” 

Shops and other businesses in neighbourhoods were an important part of the city’s early history, according to a planning report before city council earlier this year, but mid-20th century policies stopped new ones from opening. Leaving only those businesses that were grandfathered in, or had applied to the city for a zoning variance, allowed to remain open inside residential neighbourhoods. 

But in the city’s core that is now changing. City council voted in November to allow some detached properties on select residential streets, like a house or multiplex, to become a retail store in certain wards.

The wards now seeing a partial reversal to the long-standing limitations include: Davenport, Parkdale-High Park, Spadina-Fort York, Toronto-Danforth, Toronto-Centre, Toronto-St. Paul’s, University-Rosedale and Beaches-East York.

Limitations put in place after the province allowed municipalities to make those decisions more than a hundred years ago. 

“Rules started going in to make neighbourhoods places where you’re not going to be bothered by the factory next door,” he said. “That eventually becomes that people really don’t want anything around them that’s going to disturb the residential environment.”

While local councillors celebrated the move, Hess is tepid about the potential success of the decision to loosen the rules, because brick and mortar retail stores have already been struggling in recent years. 

But for Contra Café near Shaw and Dupont streets, being embedded in the neighbourhood has been a boon for business. The café was founded by building owner and architect Aaron Letki, who purchased what used to be a traditional corner store and redesigned the building into a café.

While properties operating as a business were grandfathered into the stricter zoning rules, Letki still had to get approval from the city because it was changing from a store to a cafe — red tape the city’s working to eliminate with these changes. 

“I’ve lived in this neighbourhood since I was seven,” Letki said. “There used to be grocery stores on every corner and I’ve seen them one by one close.” 

He said the business, which is now owned by his former baker, has become more successful than he imagined when he came up with the concept.