Toward abolition of R1 zoning and the two-egress straitjacket?
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This project examined public perceptions of ‘soft’ densification in the ‘Yellow Belts’ of Montreal and Toronto, focusing on how regulatory constraints such as R1 zoning and two-means-of-egress requirements shape housing development.
Jump to Research OutputsHow do R1 zoning and two-egress requirements constrain housing densification in Canadian cities, and what public support exists for reform?
This project documented popular perceptions of context-sensitive densification in the post-suburban ‘Yellow Belts’ of Toronto and Montreal, where struggles over land use reform continue. It targeted two restrictive land practices common in Anglo-American contexts: protectionist R1 zoning regimes that limit large areas of (sub)urban land to single-family detached housing, and the two-means-of-egress requirement in building codes. These regulations function as enduring constraints, shaping both the built environment and the legal frameworks that govern it. Similar policies have been challenged in U.S. jurisdictions, such as Minneapolis-St. Paul, where R1 zoning has been banned, but reform efforts depend on demonstrating broad public support; this project explores how participatory, crowdsourced approaches to urban design and planning can help build that support.
Project Lead(s):
Home Organization:
McGill University
Community Partner:
ERA Architects, Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal
Funding Stream:
Comparative Project
Project status:
Complete
This project was renewed for funding and details about outputs and press can be found on the second stage research page.
View the second stageBackground
This project examined two of the most entrenched regulatory barriers to housing densification in Canadian cities: restrictive R1 zoning regimes that confine vast areas of urban and suburban land to single-family detached housing, and the two-means-of-egress requirement embedded in national building codes. Both function as self-perpetuating structures, materialized in the built environment and reinforced through legal and regulatory frameworks, that together constrain the range of housing forms that can be built and where. The project focused on the Yellow Belts of Montreal and Toronto, crowdsourcing perceptions of context-sensitive densification through participatory urban design tools to build the empirical evidence base needed for regulatory reform. Drawing on examples from U.S. jurisdictions that have moved to ban R1 zoning, and situating Canada’s two-egress rule within a broader global context where single-stair buildings are standard practice, the research argues that reform is possible only when broad public support can be empirically demonstrated. A parallel stream of the project prepared documentation for a proposed code change to the Canadian Commission on Building and Fire Codes, aimed at enabling more flexible, family-friendly, and lot-efficient housing forms across Canadian cities.
Methodology
This project combined participatory urban design tools with crowdsourced public engagement to document perceptions of densification in the Yellow Belts of Montreal and Toronto, alongside preparation of technical documentation supporting a proposed code change to the Canadian Commission on Building and Fire Codes. This project was renewed for a second stage; details on outputs and press coverage are available at bsh.ubc.ca/research/concerted-action-on-the-missing-middle.
Results
This project was renewed for a second stage, ‘Concerted Action on the Missing Middle,’ which develops a formal dossier supporting reform of national egress requirements (see below). Details on outputs and press coverage are available at bsh.ubc.ca/research/concerted-action-on-the-missing-middle.