Picture it: You’re one half of a young vibrant couple, newly married, both employed, happy, and ready to start your new life together in the city of Toronto. No more renting! It’s time to make that big step into owning your first home. How exciting! You decide on where you want to live, pick up every paper you can find, search the Internet and low and behold…

You can’t afford anything.

You briefly consider buying someones parking space and pitching up a tent. Then reality in realty kicks in.

That reality is this: Most couples cannot afford to purchase a house in Toronto. Getting a place in the elusive 416 area code is beyond many peoples reach.

So what’s the solution?

It may seem that Vancouver has remedied this with their 2009 amendment of single family zoning by-laws to allow the construction of lane way homes. The purpose is to recreate the urban landscape, allowing them to construct affordable housing, while diminishing their urban environmental footprint.

More information can be found here:

http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/guidelines/L007.pdf

This has caused a surge of initiatives to create a greener city for Vancouver, including the Lane way Housing Project

http://www.sustainablebuildingcentre.com/2010challenge/laneway

Could this be the solution to Toronto’s high market real estate? So far, it seems to be working in Vancouver:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/home-and-garden/architecture/architecture-features/a-vancouver-home-to-blog-about/article2063365/

It would be great to give young couples the opportunity to move away from renting, and own a home like their parents were able to, and if we are able to help with our own green footprint…well, all the better.

What do you think?