Toronto received more than 60 sixplex applications under new rules. Our map shows where they are - Toronto Star

The city legalized sixplexes in select wards in June 2025. Since then, housing insiders say 'the uptake is real.'

Rendering of a sixplex design preapproved for a narrow lot in Toronto, released on Oct. 2, 2026. 

The City of Toronto has received more than 60 applications to build sixplexes since it began allowing the developments in select neighbourhoods over a year ago, with more than half of the properties also seeking permission to add an extra garden or laneway suite, new data from the city shows.

“The uptake is real. It isn’t yet dramatic, but it shouldn’t have been expected to be,” said Ken Greenberg, a former director of urban design and architecture for the City of Toronto.

“You really have to judge the success of this, not over a year or two or three, but over a decade.”

While the applications suggest interest in adding smaller-scale housing to traditionally single-family neighbourhoods — the “missing middle” that housing advocates have long called for — they come amid a contentious debate over how much density established communities should accommodate. Some residents have raised concerns about the impact on street parking, tree canopy, stormwater drainage and neighbourhood character, while experts say financial and practical hurdles remain.

Toronto allowed multiplexes of up to four units without special permissions in eligible lowrise neighbourhoods across the city in 2023. While city staff recommended permitting fiveplexes and sixplexes more broadly, in June 2025 council voted after intense pushback from suburban wards to restrict the larger buildings to the former Toronto and East York district and Ward 23 (Scarborough North).

The wards with the most sixplex applications were Toronto-Danforth with 15, Davenport with 14 and Toronto-St. Paul with 12. Five wards where sixplexes aren’t allowed as of right saw applications, such as in York Centre and Etobicoke North, each with two. 

More than half of the properties with sixplex applications have also sought permission for a garden or laneway suite. Because those backyard units would be in addition to the six homes in the main building, they would need special permission from the city.

Thaddeus Sherlock, a volunteer with More Neighbours Toronto who advocated for larger multiplexes to be allowed in more wards, said there’s been pushback against sixplexes, particularly in parts of North York and Scarborough.

He said some of the resistance reflects a broader reluctance to accept more density in areas long dominated by detached homes.

“That type of housing is unfortunately vulnerable to NIMBYism, to cultural and political backlash,” Sherlock said.

Small infill homes made up 10 times more of Toronto’s housing starts last year than in 2023, CMHC says.