Wow! That was fast. Toboggan Flats cofounder Robert Barnard had a chance meeting with Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow and a National Housing Day event in mid-November. On December 6th we were presenting to Toronto’s Planning and Housing Committee prior to the Chair Gord Perks putting forward a motion for staff to create a plan for coliving in Toronto. It passed unanimously.
Add that to Calgary, and we now have two Canadian cities looking at the benefits of coliving.
Toronto is at a turning point. With rising office vacancies and growing demand for affordable housing, the city is rethinking how to repurpose underused spaces. This shift opens the door for creative solutions that make better use of existing underutilized infrastructure.
Our message to the City of Toronto was clear: coliving isn’t just a housing fix—it’s a community-first solution that makes use of what the city already has. And with students and seniors residences (great examples of coliving) already allowed in Toronto, why can’t others live that way?
It brings people together in shared spaces while offering privacy at a fraction of the cost of traditional apartments. In cities like Toronto, where affordability and isolation are growing challenges, coliving offers a sustainable, supportive solution that’s faster and cheaper to implement than new builds.
Toboggan Flats believes it’s part of the missing mix that will help solve the housing crisis, and we’ve set our sights on Toronto as a key partner in this effort.
Global lessons in action: How Denver informed our approach
In our presentation to the Committee, we highlighted successful coliving policies from other cities to show how Toronto could benefit from similar strategies. One standout example is Denver, which has embraced adaptive reuse to address its office vacancies and housing shortage.
Why Denver Matters:
- Clear Guidelines: Denver’s zoning allows office-to-residential conversions by default with minimal red tape.
- Congregate Living Model: The city supports shared housing frameworks that make coliving viable.
- Proven Impact: Incentives for adaptive reuse have lowered costs and fast-tracked projects that repurpose vacant office buildings sustainably.
By sharing Denver’s approach, we helped Toronto see how flexible policies can lead to faster, more affordable housing solutions—and we shaped our recommendations with this best practice in mind.
Thank you for moving so quickly
Sometimes governments get labelled as slow-moving. That has not been our experience at Toboggan Flats so far. Three weeks from conversation to passed motion shows how important swift action on affordable housing is for Toronto. Everyone helped. Mayor Chow and her office. Our advisors Ken Greenberg and Paul Bedford helped us frame our request clearly. Councillor Gord Perks met with staff and crafted the motion and of course, the rest of the committee – Josh Matlow, Brad Bradford and Frances Nunziata, Jamaal Myers, Michael Thompson, and Parthi Kandavel supported it. We’re excited to collaborate with the city as they create a model for coliving to succeed in Toronto.
And here is the motion passed.
The Planning and Housing Committee requests that the Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning, the Executive Director, Housing Secretariat, the Executive Director, Development Review, the Executive Director, Municipal Licensing and Standards, and the Chief Building Official and Executive Director, Toronto Building to conduct an analysis of the applicable policies, standards and regulations related to replacing office space with co-living residential uses/housing, and report back by the April 10, 2025 meeting of the Planning and Housing Committee.
