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By Tess Kalinowski | Toronto Star | Jan. 30, 2021 | Vinita Persaud and Guy Labelle are part of a pandemic cohort that has traded condo living for a detached house in the suburbs with room for both to work comfortably from home. The couple had planned to move last year. Confronted by a COVID-19 … Read more

By Heather Mallick | Star Columnist | Sept. 19, 2020 | What can be done about Toronto NIMBYs, angry at being caught up in an era that demands overwhelming change in how humans live and nest? I suspect there is a little NIMBY in all of us, including me. Maybe people can’t live together. Maybe … Read more

By Jennifer Pagliaro | Star Reporter | July 13, 2020 | Council is about to wade into one of the most contentious planning debates that has been percolating during an ongoing housing crisis — whether to allow more density in stable, low-rise neighbourhoods. City planning staff are recommending a work plan spanning 18 months or … Read more

By Tess Kalinowski | Star Reporter | July 29, 2019 | Rob Thompson has given up the fight to sever his Long Branch property. His decision clears the way for a monster home to replace his tiny bungalow. Instead of supplanting the rundown 1939 cottage with two family homes — Thompson had hoped to live … Read more

By May Warren | Star Reporter | July 16, 2019 | The problem: While Toronto needs way more housing in the coming decades, it also has tens of thousands of garages that may becomeredundant as private vehicle ownership becomes less necessary. When the car was king in the Golden State, the garage was its castle. … Read more

By Star Editorial Board | April 22, 2019 | Sometimes a door is just a door. And sometimes it’s a lot more than that. Consider, for example, the doors that Toronto city council has decided in its wisdom won’t be allowed by right: entrances to secondary suites that are at the front of a house. … Read more

By Gilbert Ngabo | Star Reporter | Nov. 9, 2018 | An outgoing councillor seemingly trying to draw attention to a “too-tall building” instead brought focus on the city’s low density- zoned areas with critics and city planners saying the real travesty is not a 75-storey highrise in the distance but the lack of higher-density … Read more

By Edward Keenan | Columnist | Jan. 3, 2016 | Back in June, I wrote a column making fun of many of the busybody neighbourhood complaints that make the news, ones I characterized as “petty, whiny jerkiness.” Exhibit A in that argument was the Cabbagetown fight against a local park splash pad, which some neighbours quoted in press … Read more