TORONTO, ON – While policymakers debate high-rise approvals and federal housing targets, a quieter shift is underway across the Greater Toronto Area. Homeowners are turning to their own backyards, garages, and basements to solve a crisis the market has failed to solve for them. At the centre of that shift sits missing-middle housing, a category of gentle-density construction that includes garden suites, laneway homes, and in-law suites.
Tibor Amota, founder of North York-based Mirage Renovations, argues the conversation has reached an inflection point. “People are looking in their own backyards for the solution to the housing crisis, quite literally,” Amota said. “The affordability problem isn’t getting fixed overnight, so families are getting the maximum out of what they already own. We call it cohesive separation. Everyone lives together, everyone has their own space.”
The pattern was recently documented by The News International, which reported on North York families creating multi-generational homes without moving, a trend that cites Amota and reflects a broader shift in how established GTA homeowners are responding to affordability pressure.
The Policy Window Is Already Open
The City of Toronto formally legalized garden suites across most residential lots in 2022. Laneway housing was legalized earlier, in 2018. Combined, these two policy changes unlocked construction rights on hundreds of thousands of existing properties, many of them held by families who purchased decades ago and now face the question of how to keep the next generation in the city.
A permitted garden suite in Toronto, typically 400 to 1,200 square feet, can generate between $1,800 and $3,200 per month in rental income, or house an aging parent or adult child without the cost of a second property. Full project costs generally range from $280,000 to $450,000 for a detached garden suite, and $90,000 to $180,000 for an in-law suite within an existing basement.
“The math has quietly changed,” Amota said. “A garden suite is no longer a luxury project. For a family watching their kids priced out of the city, it’s becoming the difference between keeping them close and losing them to another province.”
A Warning About Who Is Building Them
Amota, whose company has operated in the GTA since 2006 and completes 100% of its projects on time and on budget, cautions that the opportunity is attracting contractors without the regulatory experience the work demands. Toronto’s permitting process for garden suites, laneway homes, and residential additions currently runs 8 to 20 weeks and involves Committee of Adjustment reviews, tree protection requirements, and in some neighbourhoods, Heritage Conservation District and Ravine Protection Overlay considerations.
“I’ve walked properties where another contractor told the homeowner a garden suite was straightforward, and we found a protected tree, a utility easement, or a heritage designation that made the original plan impossible,” Amota said. “Finding that at assessment costs almost nothing. Finding it mid-construction costs tens of thousands of dollars and months of delay.”
Available for Commentary
Tibor Amota is available to speak with reporters, editors, and producers on topics including garden suite feasibility and costs, Toronto’s laneway housing policy, multi-generational renovation trends, the wealth transfer shaping GTA housing decisions, and what homeowners should ask before hiring a missing-middle builder.
About Mirage Renovations
Mirage Renovations is a North York-based renovation and construction firm founded in 2006 by Tibor Amota. The company serves property managers including Minto Properties, Centurion, Boardwalk, and Rhapsody, and is expanding into private residential work with a focus on condo renovations and missing-middle construction across the GTA.
Media Contact
Company Name: Mirage Renovations
Email: Send Email
Phone: (289) 697-9227
Address:106 Gulliver Rd
City: North York
State: ON
Country: Canada
Website: https://miragerenovations.ca/
