Multiplexes in Toronto: four units everywhere, six in nine wards

What changed, and when

In May 2023 Toronto City Council permitted multiplexes across every neighbourhood in the city. A multiplex is low-rise housing with two, three or four units in a single building, and after that amendment four units became as-of-right anywhere in Toronto.

As-of-right is the part that matters. It means no rezoning application, no public meeting and no discretionary approval, provided the building complies. The zoning by-law amendment took effect on 12 May 2023 and the Official Plan amendment on 14 June 2023.

The permission also allows height up to 10 metres in zones where the previous maximum was lower, which is what makes a three-storey form workable on lots that could not have carried one before.

Six units are not city-wide, whatever you have read

This is the single most common error in circulation, and it is worth being precise about because acting on it is expensive.

In June 2025 Council adopted Official Plan Amendment 818 and Zoning By-law 654-2025, permitting up to six units across four storeys in nine wards. Eight of those are in the Toronto and East York district, the pre-amalgamation core, and the ninth is Ward 23, Scarborough North, as a pilot.

Everywhere else in Toronto the as-of-right maximum is still four. A councillor in another ward can bring six-unit permissions to their ward through an opt-in process, and more wards may join during 2026, so the map is not static.

If a guide tells you sixplexes are legal city-wide, it was written before June 2025 or it did not check.

What the permission did not change

Unit count and envelope are two different questions, and only the first one moved. Everything that shapes the building still applies.

Setbacks from every lot line, which decide the footprint before unit count enters the arithmetic.

Floor space limits, so four units inside a permitted floor area means four smaller units rather than a larger building.

Lot coverage, height and the angular plane where they apply to the zone.

The practical consequence is that a lot permitting four units does not necessarily permit four good ones. On a small lot the envelope is the binding constraint, and the fourth unit comes out of the size of the other three.

The exceptions that still override it

A city-wide permission still sits underneath everything attached to a specific property. Site-specific exception clauses, heritage listing or designation, and a conservation authority's regulated area all operate on top of the base zone.

None of those are visible from the zone label. A lot reading RD tells you which general rules apply and nothing about which clauses have been attached to that parcel over the last fifty years.

Parking is one thing that genuinely went away: no additional parking is required for the added units under the multiplex permissions.

What is worth establishing first

Three things, in this order. Which ward the property is in, because that decides whether the ceiling is four units or six. What the envelope actually leaves once setbacks and floor area bind. And whether anything is attached to the parcel specifically.

The first is a lookup. The second is geometry on the real parcel outline rather than an assumed rectangle. The third is the one that catches people, because it is published separately from everything else.