We get asked some version of this constantly: I own a lot in Toronto, what can I build on it? The answer is more available than it was three years ago, and the sequence matters more than most people expect.
This is the order we work in, on our own projects and on sites we look at with owners.
1. Start With Permissions — What Can As-of-Right Accomplish?
Since May 2023, Toronto has permitted multiplexes of up to four units as-of-right on virtually every residential lot in the city. Since June 2025, six units are permitted as-of-right across the Toronto and East York district and in Ward 23 (Scarborough North). Other wards have an opt-in path but aren't automatically included, so sixplex permission is a question about where your lot is, not how big it is.
That count applies to the main building. As-of-right permission also allows a garden suite or laneway suite at the rear. On a four-unit lot, that rear home is what gets you to five — and five is a threshold that matters enormously, for reasons we'll get to.
As-of-right means no rezoning and no Committee of Adjustment application. It does not mean no rules. Building permits, setbacks, height limits, floor space index and lot coverage all still apply, and they're what decide whether the units you're permitted actually fit. We've written more on what as-of-right does and doesn't give you, and on how the four-versus-six geography works.
2. The Unit Count Decides the Economics
This is the step people skip, and it's the expensive one to get wrong. Three separate government programs turn on three different unit counts, and they don't line up by accident.
Four units opens the HST rebate on purpose-built rental — 100% of the 5% federal GST and 100% of Ontario's 8% provincial portion, with the per-unit cap removed. Together that's roughly 13% off tax-exposed project cost. It requires at least four self-contained units, and construction has to have started after 13 September 2023 and begin before 2031.
Five units opens CMHC MLI Select, which requires a minimum of five self-contained rental units. A fourplex does not qualify on its own. The program scores on affordability, energy efficiency and accessibility, and can reach up to 95% loan-to-value with amortizations as long as 50 years at the top affordability tier. More on why five is the number that matters.
Six units is the top of Toronto's development charge exemption, which covers the first six units of a multiplex plus parkland dedication. Development charges can otherwise run as high as $138,000 per unit. On a six-unit building, that waiver can be worth over half a million dollars.
So there's a genuine window between five and six units where every available incentive applies at once. Landing at four when the lot supported five is not a small miss — it's the difference between qualifying for MLI Select and not.
3. Design for Feasibility
Here is the part that surprises people: not every site is viable, and two lots with identical permissions can have completely different answers.
Permission is a ceiling, not a plan. What you can actually build is decided where three things meet — what the zoning allows, what the site itself can physically carry, and what the building code requires once you start drawing. That last one is easy to underestimate. Egress, fire separation, servicing and accessibility all consume floor area, and they consume it before a single square foot goes to the homes. A design that works beautifully on a wide lot can fail outright on a narrow one at the same permitted unit count.
Then the site imposes its own constraints. Lot geometry and access determine what can be staged and how it gets built. Soil conditions decide the foundation. Electrical supply deserves particular attention, because Toronto Hydro runs on its own timeline and that timeline doesn't bend to yours. Healthy trees are a real constraint, not a formality — they can't be removed to add units. Outside the core, parking requirements change the arithmetic again.
The cost drivers that actually move a multiplex budget are the product you're building, lot geometry, site access, soil conditions and any required servicing upgrades. We answer these questions before we acquire anything. Discovering them after closing doesn't just cost money, it costs months — see what it actually costs to build a multiplex in Toronto.
The output of this stage isn't a rendering. It's an honest answer about whether the site supports a project worth doing, and if so, which one.
4. Line Up the Financing Early
Financing rental housing in Canada is its own discipline, and the sequence is counterintuitive: you need a view on your permanent takeout loan before you can tell whether the project is viable at all. That's a decision made at the beginning, not the end.
It's also a moving target. The debt products that make small rental projects work in Canada — CMHC's programs among them — change continuously, and the published summaries don't tell you everything that determines what you'll actually be offered. Rates, underwriting treatment and how a given lender reads your project are things you learn through relationships with brokers and lenders, and you have to keep learning them, because the answer this year isn't the answer next year.
The practical implication for a first-time builder is simple: start those conversations long before you think you need to, and assume the terms you model at the outset are provisional.
5. Then You Have to Build It
Permissions, feasibility and financing are the parts people plan for. Construction is the part that decides whether the plan survives.
You are sequencing trades on a small, tight urban site, usually with limited staging room and neighbours on both sides. You are holding the carrying cost of the land and the loan the entire time, so every week of delay is a real number. Permits and inspections arrive on the City's schedule, not yours — our approval timeline post covers where the delays actually sit. Servicing connections have long lead times that don't compress no matter how organized you are.
And drawings meet site conditions. Something is always different from what was assumed, and each of those moments is a decision made under time pressure, with cost attached, by whoever is standing there. Getting those right repeatedly is most of what separates a building that performs for fifty years from one that doesn't.
For most owners this is the honest sticking point. Not that it can't be done — that it's a full-time job with a long tail of small judgment calls, and you're learning it once, on the most expensive thing you own.
Where We Come In
This is the problem we set out to solve for ourselves, and it's why we work the way we do.
Rather than treating every lot as a blank page, we've developed a set of building products designed for families — real homes with bedrooms, not the smallest units the code allows — that we adapt across the lot dimensions Toronto actually has. That means we come into a site already understanding what we're building and how we'll deliver it, and we can tell much sooner whether a property supports a project worth doing.
The four stages above are things we've already absorbed, rather than costs an owner takes on alone.
The two we have underway are different answers to different lots. FAMILY 1 is our product for the wider suburban lots that make up much of Toronto: five family-sized homes of roughly 1,300 square feet, each with three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms and dedicated outdoor space. We acquired that site in April 2025, had approvals and permits within four months, broke ground in September 2025, and residents move in this fall. NEIGHBOUR 1 is seven homes, 500 to 1,400 square feet, for families at different life stages — our product for tighter urban lots.
If you own an underutilized lot in Toronto and would rather see it built than sold, we partner with landowners to do exactly that. Build with us. To follow FAMILY 1 through to families moving in, join the waitlist.