Toronto Homeowner Calls Neighbour's Garden Suite a 'Watchtower,' City Confirms It Meets All Watchtower Bylaws
A Toronto resident says her neighbour's new garden suite looms over her backyard like a **watchtower**. The City of Toronto replied that the structure fully complies with setback, height, and angular plane rules. City staff did not say whether the rules would also allow an actual watchtower.
This is the housing crisis as Toronto experiences it. For years, every level of government has begged homeowners to add density. Build up, build back, build anything. Then one person does exactly that, and a second person finds out their lilac bush now has an audience.
The suite is roughly the size of a one-bedroom condo downtown, which in Toronto puts its market value somewhere near that of a small Prairie town. Somebody will rent it for $2,400 a month and consider themselves lucky to get a window, even one that looks straight down at a stranger's barbecue.
Urban planners call this "gentle density." Residents have other names for it, and most of them would not get past a community association newsletter. The gap between the two vocabularies is where Toronto housing policy actually lives.
City council is now considering a pilot programme of mandatory privacy hedges. The hedges would need their own permit, an arborist report, and a heritage review if any branch is older than the 1990s.
The neighbour, for her part, says she is only trying to provide housing. She has also asked the city whether a garden suite can have a garden suite of its own.