Dreams in Tight Spaces: The Laneway House Blueprint

In this episode Des interviews Ashley McInnis, a real estate agent who built a laneway house in Toronto. 

McInnis shares his experience with the process, from obtaining permits to dealing with construction and financing. He explains the project cost around $350,000 for the laneway house itself, plus additional expenses for renovations to the main house and landscaping, totaling around $500,000. 

Despite the high cost, McInnis believes it's a good investment, offering a flexible space that can be used for family, work, or rental income. He also discusses the challenges of navigating city regulations and the importance of considering design and functionality. 

Listen For
2:56 Getting Started and Considerations
5:02 Design and Functionality
8:34 Budget and Costs
12:41 Permit Process and Neighbour Relations 

Guest: Ashley McInnis
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Recorded in Sep 2023

Transcript

Desmond Brown (00:02):

We've all heard about the housing shortage. Many have even said that we have a housing crisis in Toronto. We've had a number of changes to our zoning bylaws over the past few years. These changes all in an effort to create more housing. One initiative that's getting trashed in Toronto is Lane Way housing. So if you have a laneway at the back of your house, and we have a lot of neighborhoods like this in our city, and your property qualifies under the zoning, you could build an additional unit off the Laneway on your own property. Have you ever thought about doing this? I'm Desmond Brown, and today on Sold in the Six, I have a guest who built a beautiful Laneway suite and is really excited to share everything that goes into it.

(00:55):

A quick note off the top. February, as you know, or I hope is Black History Month, a time to honour and celebrate the significant contributions and achievements of black people. It's an opportunity for each of us to reflect on the struggles for freedom and equality, while also recognizing the impact that black people have made in shaping the cultural, political, and economic fabric of our great country. It's special for me too. My family immigrated to Canada back in 1947, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart for everything that we have today. They had to fight at every turn for equality against discrimination in this country. Canada's a great place to live, but it's not perfect and we are still striving towards that utopia that we'd all like to have. My guest this week is Ashley McInnis, who I work with for many years at Royal LePage, and I'm just so happy that you arc here joining me on Sold in the six. Finally. Ashley, how are you doing today?

Ashley McInnis (01:56):

Not bad, Des. Nice to be on. Thanks so much. It's been a long time, actually. I've been thinking about how many years it's been. It has been a time.

Desmond Brown (02:04):

I know it has been. One thing I'll remember though, I think one of the last times I saw you, Alison and I were having a dinner in a Japanese restaurant. It was Valentine's and you were taking takeout and then after you left, we get this bottle of wine at our table and

Ashley McInnis (02:23):

On what's going on. I forgot about that.

Desmond Brown (02:26):

And the waiter said, oh, that was from that gentleman you were just talking to. So thank you again for that. I know. I thank you at the

Ashley McInnis (02:31):

Time. That was such a beautiful touch. Thanks for remembering. I didn't. That's great. That's great.

Desmond Brown (02:36):

We remember things like this and excellent for all of you out there listening. Ashley is an excellent real estate agent as well, and we have done some work together in the past. So anyway, Ashley, let's get into the Laneway house. No, sure. How does somebody get started on something like this? How did you get started on this?

Ashley McInnis (02:56):

Well, I thought about it for a while. I actually thought about it since I bought my house. I thought about laneways and where I could purchase to build a Laneway house, and I think that's changed because the regulations have changed and the city has changed. They've certainly become a lot more lenient and what they allow and everything else. I feel like that would've changed probably if I bought this house 11 years ago, thinking one day I would tear down the garage, which was an old coal-fired workshop, actually back in the day in 1912. But it was great. Yeah, I sprayed it out. It was great to park in for a while, but when the car started to be more valuable than the garage, I started to get a little concerned and then I thought about what are we going to do with this?

Desmond Brown (03:49):

So there was an old garage that you tear the garage down and then build another garage or build the whole new laneway house with the garage and then having the housing on top of the garage.

Ashley McInnis (04:01):

So I mean, we had a parking back there, so we didn't want to remove the parking whatsoever. My thought was if we're going to build a garage and build it, lot lined a lot line, which we could do and we can talk about that in a second because there are certain that's a little bit of a, there's some concerns about what you can do and what you can't do. I thought, well, why not go up? You know what I mean? Why not go up on it? And there were lots of reasons why I thought in the future we would want to go up. So I thought if we're going to do it anyway and we want power out there anyway, why don't we bring sanitary drains and plumbing and gas out there and build a condo on our backyard, essentially. Yeah,

Desmond Brown (04:47):

I think a lot of people do that from the laneway houses that I've seen. People keep their parking, so they'll have the garage underneath and then they'll build the suite on top. So tell us about the suite that you have up there right now, and then we're going to get into what you have to do to actually get the whole process going.

Ashley McInnis (05:02):

Sure. Okay. So I mean, really what I wanted to do is I thought I had, and it depends on what, obviously there are a lot of budgetary requirements, considerations and all that kind of stuff. But when you think about, I thought, listen, I've got one chance to do this and what do I want to do with it and what may I use it for in the future? And thought about that. I took go bigger go home approach I guess you could say, because I thought, again, I have one chance. What if I want to live in it? What if my son wants to live in it? What if my mother wants to live in it? What if we want to use it for income reasons? It's multifaceted in terms of what people use these auxiliary buildings for. So I just thought, how could we build it to make it the best possible scenario for all of these reasons? So we did the garage. We did the garage on the main floor. It is heated and air conditioned and insulated with pot lights so that if we ever wanted to turn it into living space, we could. And then we've got about 720 square feet above.

Desmond Brown (06:20):

Wow. That's significant because we're selling condos, 500, 600 square feet downtown, and they are anywhere around, I guess I always say the rule of thumb is about a thousand bucks a square feet or a thousand bucks a square foot. Just the rule of thumb to start or subtract from. So 700 square feet is really a good amount of space up there. So did you turn it into a one bedroom?

Ashley McInnis (06:44):

Okay, so just to clarify. So that does include, there is an entrance, a specific entrance for let's say a tenant or whoever's going to be using the suite. So that's including the foyer area. Some storage. It's got radiant floor heating upstairs. They were going to do a two bedroom. I did decide against a two bedroom. I found that it just wasn't enough space to make it feel, I don't know, it's too many people. I mean, we do have convertible space in the living room if it needs to sleep four in a pinch, if we've got somebody coming into town for a wedding or we've got my family coming in for Christmas, which we did this year for the first time we hosted Christmas. We were able to have everybody here and they had their own separate space. It was actually really, really nice. And it sleeps four, but it is a one bedroom with a workspace and a dining room,

Desmond Brown (07:37):

And I've seen some pictures of it. It's beautiful. You didn't scrimp at all when it came to finishings

Ashley McInnis (07:44):

House. And that's the one thing too, is that we wanted to kind of mirror what we had in the house. Again, I thought, and I've done this before and I think everybody's done it before with real estate values and what's going on. I bought a house, I put an IKEA kitchen in. We've got, we're all in a budget, but as real estate values started to increase and areas start to change, there's a little bit of regret in terms of how I penny pinched in terms of what I did. And I thought, again, I'm going to go back to what I said. It was a one-time thing. I was going to do it once. I didn't want, I wanted to do it, and I wanted to kind of mirror what we had in our own property. But there are a lot of different options, obviously for people, and it has to do with budget clearly.

Desmond Brown (08:34):

Okay, so what was your budget? What did you spend on this?

Ashley McInnis (08:38):

Okay, yeah. Well, that changed because it was covid, right? So it kept going up and up, but it was perfect timing. We built it over. It did take a little while to build. So as we were kind of getting everything sorted and purchased and everything else, prices started to go up, lumber started to go up. Certain things like labor. Yeah, well spray foam insulation, almost two and a half times more from the time that we actually said we were going to do it to the time that they did it. But we had to have a conversation with obviously the contractors about that and say like, Hey, if I need to get a storage locker and stock it full of lumber, let's do that. But anyway, so the whole build was, wasn't cheap, but we were 26 by 26 footprint. So 26 feet wide, 26 feet deep.

(09:30):

We could have gone quite a bit bigger, but we decided we wanted a backyard. We still wanted our own space. We've got a hot tub and a deck back there. So it was about 350,000 to build the building and to have everything completely done. That's with permits, everything else, architects, all the finishes, everything done. In the end though, what people don't really realize that I'm sure you're going to ask me, is that it is not just about the building itself, it's about what you have to do to the building. So a lot of people think they can just hook up to the sewers and do whatever, but it's not that simple. You've got to come to the house, got to come to the house. So everything comes to the main house. So sanitary drains, electrical, gas, everything comes through the main house into the main house, which means a renovation to the main house. If you've got a finished basement, that can be problematic. If you've got you to bash the floor out and cooked the drains, gas, electrical has to be, oh, my house is great. I had a hot tub. Everything else, I have a four bedroom detached house in the beach. It's like, okay, well I only had a hundred amp service and it was fine for me, but not when you build a Lane Way house, upgrade to 200 amp.

Desmond Brown (10:47):

Yeah, so there you go. So you're saying 3, 3 50 for the lane way house, plus the expenses in your home, like you said, for which

Ashley McInnis (10:53):

Was significant because then we had to do

Desmond Brown (10:55):

The sewer system and so on electricity

Ashley McInnis (10:58):

And landscaping, you had to tear the deck out. We had to trench four feet down, and then we've got our fences are gone or decks are gone.

Desmond Brown (11:07):

Really? So you're a couple hundred grand more?

Ashley McInnis (11:09):

Yeah. Well, I have good guys, but we're at about 500 now.

Desmond Brown (11:15):

Yeah, yeah,

Ashley McInnis (11:16):

We're done. Done. Okay. But it's gorgeous. Yeah, it is. But 150 grand in my backyard to replace it.

Desmond Brown (11:24):

Yeah. Well that's cool. So for someone wanting to do this, so again, financing. So we're real estate agents, but we're not rich. No, we don't have

Ashley McInnis (11:35):

Contrary to popular belief, we are not. Yeah, yeah.

Desmond Brown (11:39):

So how hard was it to finance this?

Ashley McInnis (11:43):

It wasn't actually difficult. So what we did is, well, we had the luxury of obviously real estate values going up. So we did pull equity out of the house in order to do it. So we financed it that way. Obviously we needed to got deals where we could and everything else, and we had some cash on the side to do it, but we took a large portion of it out, out of the house and financed it that way.

Desmond Brown (12:11):

So that's a good way to do it. I'm sure there are some lenders out there that will lend for the construction of it, but if you have enough equity in your home, you can do it through your line of credit. Like I said, have a couple of extra bucks from other investments that you can use. That's a good way to go about it as well. From the time you got your permit to the time it was, lemme put it this way, put your first shovel in the ground in your back lane way. How long did that take?

Ashley McInnis (12:41):

Well, okay, so I'm going to backtrack on that question because the permit portion was probably the longest portion. I will tell you because we did get a committee, because we went to committee, so we did cut a committee because we have about 11 and a half foot ceilings. I did not like what the cookie cutter laneway houses look like. They've got barn roofs. I didn't like that there was setbacks. So I went to committee. It was immediately approved. Once we had the meeting, it was right then approved. So we got it done. Oh goodness. Now, yeah, in city of Toronto, now we're dealing with eight months. I saw this on another podcast you were talking about actually, but we're dealing with eight months. That's exactly how long it took me. But if we're outside the city, like you said, I'm learning a lot from you. Des can be much, much less. Right. Much, much less. But city of Toronto, yeah, definitely. Just if you bank on eight months before you can even put a shovel in the ground, you're fine. It took a long time. And most people will go to committee even for small minor variances, just small, small stuff, and I'd recommend doing it. Yeah,

Desmond Brown (13:52):

And that's quite

Ashley McInnis (13:53):

Common. Yeah. Recommend doing it unless you're in a big huge rush where mom has to come in, she has to live. We're building a garden suite. I think that going to committee and asking for reasonable changes to the design, and for me, and for us, it was about the design rather than the size. We didn't need to go bigger. We just wanted to go taller and we wanted to not be set back as much because we didn't really see, I didn't really understand what the detail is there, and they're constantly changing things a little bit with the city too. So there was the eight months, and then it was one year pretty much from shovel in the ground a year completely done, done where we could had our gorgeous backyard back with the hot tub and the kids in the backyard and everything was fine. And it wasn't a dirt patch. So it was about a two year plan.

Desmond Brown (14:47):

I know you have a great eye for design. I've seen your, when you're getting houses ready for sale, you and Jen do an amazing job for your clients. Did you work with a designer or you obviously had to work with an architect to get the drawings to go through the city of Toronto to get the permits as well. So tell us about the people you work with to finish off the designs for this space. Yeah,

Ashley McInnis (15:12):

Yeah. Okay. So Elevation A is who we used for the design of the architects that we used. Maxine Shab was excellent, and Julia Burke was also great. So they worked with us because I have a design background too, and a construction management background. So we didn't hire a designer. We did everything ourselves. But the architects are the main detail because if you have something that in the end, I mean it looks great and you see this all the time. I mean, you see it all the time with New Build specifically does where it looks great on paper and then you see it built and you're like, well, this is totally non functional. It's a weird, it's just strange. Or with condos where they cram areas in where you'd rather it not be there. So we changed. We did do some changing through the process, specifically with lighting.

(16:08):

So with Laneway houses, garden suites, you can't have any windows at all on the side at all. But you can't have clear story windows. Oh, yeah. Nothing at all. You can't just fire and I want to talk about fire. Do we have time? Oh, of course we do. So clear story windows are when the roof line comes up, and then there's a higher section, and on the side you can put windows all the way along that face, the side of the building that give you all this natural light, but it's not considered a side window. So there's a Lexie, these little tricks where you can get away with and the city will approve it based on architectural interest.

Desmond Brown (16:43):

Oh yeah. And then you're getting the benefits of the natural light as well through that small. Yeah. Okay. So speaking of it being in your back lane, building in your back lane, how did the neighbors react to this?

Ashley McInnis (16:59):

Okay, so very positively. Generally. It was amazing. Everybody was pretty excited. They knew that certainly what we built would be something probably special. The issue was building it. We wanted to, there's certain things too with, there's difference between a garden suite and a laneway house. And I'm sure you know this, and you probably covered it before, but really one of the details is fire access. So we don't want the fire brigade to come and not be able to know where you are or be able to access the unit or not have enough space or be blocked in some way. True. So we did have to have the neighbor on board because we have a 26 foot lot, and we did 26 by 26. So we went right to the line, the building. So there is no fire entrance specifically from the Laneway side and the Laneway side, our Laneway where we live in the beach here, and it's not named. So if the laneway is named, which you'll see a lot of laneways in the city of named, then that's actually technically the fire access. So you don't have to have fire access from the front of the yard.

Desmond Brown (18:14):

I see.

Ashley McInnis (18:14):

But we don't have that. Ours, ISS is a city owned lane, but it's not named. So let's say they say there's a fire at two, whatever street name. Well, they don't know where it's, or if it's like we have a Williams way, there's a fire in the Laneway at Williams way. They know that they can get the truck down there or the guys down there, they know what the location is. So we have between our two buildings, my neighbors and mine, 1.3 meters to the T available for access. So it was just a mutual walkway. Everybody has that in the city, right? Just a mutual walkway. But what I needed to do is, yeah, definitely. And so what I needed to do is I had to have my neighbor, I had tell my neighbor agree to what's called a limiting distance agreement. So that is meaning that we're changing the usability of the space between the two houses from a mutual walkway to a fire access space. And they have to agree to it. If they don't agree to it, then what we have to do is we have to have 1.3 meters from the lot line, not the other building, but the lot line. I don't know why they wouldn't agree to it, but you have to have agreement from

Desmond Brown (19:37):

The Yeah, exactly. So that's going to, that's going to eat into the size of your

Ashley McInnis (19:41):

Building. Exactly. Because then you would have to have the Exactly. You

Desmond Brown (19:43):

Do it that way. Yeah,

Ashley McInnis (19:43):

Exactly. You'd have to 1.3 meters all the way through. Right. You'd have to cantilever out over it and be able to have somebody come through on the main floor. You wouldn't have parking essentially. Yeah. So it was really interesting. Now, one thing that's really cool about the limiting distance agreement I want to touch on if that's okay, is that once you have it, now, you just have to call your lawyer and you get it registered on title. So once a limiting distance agreement is registered on title, it stays with both properties. So when they sell, it stays now fire access. So now what that means is the neighbor, no matter what happens with the regulations of the city or whatever, can automatically, because they have fire access, build a laneway house in their backyard. So it's actually a selling feature.

Desmond Brown (20:31):

Oh, there you

Ashley McInnis (20:31):

Go. Which is pretty cool. Yeah.

Desmond Brown (20:34):

Yeah. I guess the laneway houses still haven't really taken off in the city. I know every time we get a listing that has a laneway, we get an email from these housing consultants saying, your property, the property that you just listed may qualify for laneway housing. Do you want to delve deeper into this? And it is in the long run, a selling feature if people want to be able to add that additional unit, especially in the climate we're in right now, where they're really, really pushing for more multiple units on properties and so on. And our So-called housing crisis that we're going through, but it's not, obviously a lot of people have not taken advantage of it. That's why I'm glad I had a chance to get you on here just to go through the whole process of it. And as you can see, it's not cheap. It's not cheap, and you may not get your return on it. But for some of the uses that you talked about are fabulous. Like you said, whether it's going to be your own office, whether it's going to be for your son, he is old enough to move out, he moves out of your house and moves into that one. And in-Law, coming in

Ashley McInnis (21:44):

Was

Desmond Brown (21:44):

Wonderful. I remember the old in-Law Suites, they say in-Law Suite. Yeah. You shove your parent into a dark basement that was

Ashley McInnis (21:51):

Basement. Yeah.

Desmond Brown (21:53):

But

Ashley McInnis (21:54):

Now I still think I'm going to have to do, I mean, it's still going to have to do dinner delivery, I think. I don't know. He's going to pay me some good rent to live out there. I got to tell you, the service is great. Yeah,

Desmond Brown (22:07):

It's a really cool concept, especially like I said, in the city here where we're just so cramped for space and so on. And just to have that alternative is wonderful.

Ashley McInnis (22:18):

Well, I mean to talk about cost too, I mean, the thing about the cost is that, I mean, we think of a condo. I mean, gone are the days of buying a condo. I mean better than anyone buying a condo and carrying it and being okay with it, rather than pouring money into it monthly as an investment property, let's potentially say. Right? I kind, I've been gone are the days, I'm just not, I thought about it 20 years ago and never did anything about it, didn't have an investment condo. And now I think, you know what? I own the land already. I own the land already. So when I think about having a 715 square foot condo, high-end condo with 11 and hot foot ceilings with a balcony, high-end finishes with heated and air conditioned mancave garage that I've always wanted for 500 grand with a new backyard. I mean, kind of a deal.

Desmond Brown (23:17):

It's pretty good in the city.

Ashley McInnis (23:18):

I need to get into my DeLorean and go back to the future to get those kind of prices.

Desmond Brown (23:25):

Yeah, no, actually, when you put it that way, it's definitely an affordable way to go.

Ashley McInnis (23:30):

Yeah, it is. And you don't have to go this big, I mean, you don't have to go this big or this glamorous or anything like that. If you have a $250,000 budget, it's very possible to put something in your space that will work for what you probably want it to work. And a lot of people kind of gone on the bandwagon because of covid and people were working from home and they wanted work from home space. But it's moved away from that a little bit into multi-generational and everything else. I mean, I've got so many things I could use it for, but we'll see.

Desmond Brown (23:59):

Yeah, the multi-generational part of it is really, really intriguing because you're probably like me, we end up finding places for our client's parents. The parents are, they want them closer, closer to the grandchildren, and they're getting up in age. And it's great for family to be around. And actually, I just found a condo in the beach close to where my clients live, and I found it for their mother. And it's about 600 square feet. And it's lovely because it's nice and bright and it's close to everything, and close to it is close to family. But what a great alternative this would be just to invest in doing something like this. And if you have the laneway and you have the space in the back to do something like this, this is a great alternative to, well, I

Ashley McInnis (24:55):

Know maintenance,

Desmond Brown (24:56):

Trying to find a condo. Yeah, no maintenance fees or anything like that. And you're controlling the whole thing, and your parent is not turning into a mushroom by being in the basement,

Ashley McInnis (25:06):

Right? Yeah, exactly.

Desmond Brown (25:09):

That was a joke, by the

Ashley McInnis (25:10):

Way. I dunno. I may have to put walk-in closet extension if my mom moves in. But anyway, I know how much clothes she has, but she, that's actually, there are a lot of opportunities, and not just laneways, but also garden suites. The garden suite thing is going to be, I think, also an option for people.

Desmond Brown (25:33):

Right? No, definitely. It will be. So what are you using it for now? Is there a possibility for Airbnb?

Ashley McInnis (25:41):

There is possibility for Airbnb now, Airbnb, short-term rentals, they are limited to a 28 day minimum for if you do something like this. So long-term rentals are a little bit more, it's more of an option. I use it for my family a lot of the time. I do rent it out short term, but on a monthly basis. So it's not super short term. But yeah, I mean, it's like if you were to have, let's say, basement apartment that you're Airbnb, you could certainly have it for rented out for two days, one day if you want to, but not areas of a property that have been built as accelerated buildings that aren't attached to your actual primary residence, if that makes sense.

Desmond Brown (26:38):

Yeah, it does.

Ashley McInnis (26:41):

And also 180 day maximum from the

Desmond Brown (26:44):

City, one need from that for a short term. Okay. A year,

Ashley McInnis (26:47):

80 minimum, I guess. Maximum.

Desmond Brown (26:49):

Yeah. Okay. And I guess this would be subject to the vacant property tax too, if you don't declare on this, that's a whole different declaration. Do you know anything about that? That's

Ashley McInnis (26:57):

A whole different thing, because I think it is still actually part of your address, so it's on your property, so it's not technically vacant. And also my property is a little bit different because technically half of the property is owner occupied because it's heated air conditioned, it's living space, and I occupy that property. I do not allow that to be used for short term. So I access it. I'm there all the time. I'm in there. I have a heated and air conditioned garage, which I park in and I use. It's a little bit of a gray area. You just have to do it properly and make sure that you're safe about it. I think I'm using it for, I think I'm using it for my son eventually. That's what I think.

Desmond Brown (27:40):

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. This suite has gotten you a lot of coverage. I mean, you were on the good stuff with Mary Berg on CTV, and also you've documented this along the way. So if somebody wants to take a look at what you have developed there, what would they do? How do they find you?

Ashley McInnis (28:03):

Well, I mean, if you want to get a virtual tour and you want to see the floor plans and see what we've done, if you go to Beach Lane house.ca, you by all means, you can go and check it out. That's really good. Or obviously, that's probably the best resource You can see the floor plans there does and everything, you know what I mean? And the photos. And you've seen everything too, so if they want to check it out, yeah,

Desmond Brown (28:30):

It's wonderful.

Ashley McInnis (28:30):

Yeah, no, it's really great. Yeah, we enjoyed the process. It was not cheap, like we say, but for us it was just, I wanted to do it now. So we had the option to use it for family. And you are,

Desmond Brown (28:46):

Well, it can be done, which is great. It was so great to have you on the podcast with me today. Ashley.

Ashley McInnis (28:51):

Thank you so much, Des. Awesome to contribute.

Desmond Brown (28:54):

Okay, so we just had Ashley McInnis of Royal Page, and he owns a Laneway house in the beaches area,

(29:07):

And that's our latest episode of Soul in the Six Soul, a Laneway suite. What a great idea. If you were thinking of maybe going and buying a condo, it's a great alternative to that, which we talked about with Ashley. So I'd like to thank my producer, Doug Downs of Stories and Strategies for this latest podcast. And of course, like I say, every week, if you like it, please subscribe and leave me a rating and send it on to a friend to get in touch with me. You can email me@dedesmondbrown.ca and also follow me on all of the social media platforms. My handle is Des in the six. If you're a realtor outside of Toronto and you need someone to look after clients who are either moving to or from the greater Toronto area, please keep me in mind. I promise that your clients will be well looked after. Next time. I'm Desmond Brown.