Advocates, including the Canadian government, hope fourplexes will become more widespread across the country, providing a “missing middle” housing option between large apartment buildings and single-family homes. This comes as fourplexes gained attention this year when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced $CAN 6 billion ($4.4 billion; £3.4 billion) in new funding to address the national housing crisis. Federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser has made allowing fourplexes a condition for municipalities to access this funding.
Angela Jiang says she is much happier since moving out of a high-rise apartment building. She previously lived on the 68th floor of a condo tower in downtown Toronto but relocated five years ago to a four-unit residential building, known as a fourplex, in the city’s low-rise midtown area. Fourplexes, which can be new builds or conversions of single homes, are detached buildings split into four separate apartments.
“I loved how the neighborhood was more residential, how I didn’t need an elevator at all, and how the large balcony I had caught so much light,” says Jiang, who works in investment banking.
British Columbia has welcomed this initiative, passing legislation to require fourplexes, as well as five and sixplexes, in any city with over 5,000 residents. However, Ontario and Alberta oppose mandating fourplexes, arguing that local municipalities are best suited to decide where such developments should be built. Ontario Premier Doug Ford stated, “We know that local municipalities know their communities best, and don’t believe in forcing them to build where it doesn’t make sense.”
Critics worry that forcing fourplexes on long-established single-family home suburbs could change their character. Toronto’s history reflects this tension, as new-build fourplexes were banned from 1929 to 2023, with zoning laws favoring single-family homes. This contrasted with Montreal, where fourplexes and small apartment buildings have always been more common.
Alex Bozikovic, author of *House Divided: How the Missing Middle Will Solve Toronto’s Affordability Crisis*, explains that Toronto’s regulations historically aimed to protect single-family neighborhoods, driven by classist policies from the 1910s. These policies separated homes and apartments based on the belief that apartments brought undesirable elements, like immigrants, into neighborhoods.
Bozikovic notes that federal pressure is now pushing municipalities to adopt fourplexes as a solution to the affordable housing crisis. “The questions for Canada become, ‘is this the answer?’ or ‘is this only the first step to much larger reforms?’” he says.
Despite government support, developers and architects may not prioritize building fourplexes. Brandon Donnelly of Slate Asset Management points out that experienced developers often prefer larger projects over smaller ones like fourplexes. Financing fourplexes is also challenging, as banks are not accustomed to this type of development, according to columnist Frances Bula. She suggests that banks need new financing products to support this “missing-middle” housing form.
Toronto architect Tom Knezic, co-founder of Solares Architecture, who designed a fourplex currently being rented and four more under construction, argues that fourplexes don’t have to be architecturally dull. He believes that creative designs can make them suitable for various household sizes and types. Knezic hopes Toronto will follow Vancouver’s example of converting large single-family houses into separate apartments, seeing fourplexes as a tool to improve housing affordability.
However, despite their potential, fourplexes have not yet seen significant growth. As of last month, Toronto and Vancouver had received only about 100 applications to build them, according to press reports.
