Report · rebuilt daily
Laneway and garden suites in Toronto
2,383 Toronto addresses have taken out a permit to build one, together adding 2,201 homes in back yards and onto laneways. The City approves them in a median of 84 days, three times what an ordinary permit takes, and the median build is declared at $200K. Everything here is counted from the City's own permit records, rebuilt daily.
- Addresses with a permit
- 2,3832,550 permits, several per build
- Homes created
- 2,201dwelling units on the permits
- Median approval
- 84 days27 days for a permit of any kind
- Median declared value
- $200Kas filed, 1,909 builds
Garden suites have overtaken laneway suites
Laneway suites came first. Council allowed them in the Toronto and East York district on 28 June 2018, and garden suites, which sit in a back yard with no lane behind them, followed on 2 February 2022. Garden suites passed laneway suites in 2023 and have not been behind since. In 2026 so far it is 440 to 134. 2025 was the busiest full year, with 587 addresses starting one.
Where they are being built
Neighbourhoods
Wards
The old city dominates. Palmerston-Little Italy leads with 95, and Davenport is the busiest ward with 373. These are the neighbourhoods with the lanes and the deep lots the rules were written around.
What the record can tell you
A permit is a plan, not a building. The City's data says a permit was taken out and where it stands, not whether the suite was finished or anyone moved in. The status on each permit is the closest signal: see them on the New Laneway / Rear Yard Suite page, or look up a single address in the address lookup.
Counted by address, not by permit. One build needs a building permit and separate plumbing, HVAC and drain permits, so the 2,550 permits here cover 2,383 addresses. Reporting the permit count as the number of suites would overstate it by about half.
The City files both kinds under one heading, New Laneway / Rear Yard Suite, so which of the two a build is comes from the wording on the permit: 1,252 garden, 1,006 laneway, and 125 that say neither. Approval times are measured from first application to first issue, the same way as the permit wait times report. 11 could not be placed in a neighbourhood. Source and caveats: method.