When Toronto expanded sixplex permissions in June 2025, almost all of the new wards sat in the dense pre-war core — Old Toronto and East York, where narrow lots back onto laneways and the subway is a short walk away. One ward broke the pattern. Ward 23, Scarborough North, is the suburban entry on the list. It is the proof-of-concept for whether six units belong on a typical big suburban lot, not just a skinny downtown one.
TL;DR
- Toronto permitted up to 6 units as-of-right in 9 wards on June 25–26, 2025: OPA 818 plus Zoning By-law 654-2025 (Council item 2025.PH22.4). Source: toronto.ca.
- Eight of those wards are in the Toronto & East York district. Ward 23 (Scarborough North) is the lone suburban pilot.
- The permission is up to 6 units / 4 storeys in detached residential buildings.
- Sixplexes are not legal city-wide. Outside the 9 wards, other councillors must opt in. City-wide as-of-right remains the fourplex.
- The decision is tied to the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, with roughly $30M of funding flagged as at risk for not going city-wide.
What Ward 23 is
Scarborough is the largest of the former municipalities amalgamated into Toronto in 1998, and it looks the part: postwar, auto-oriented, built around big lots and one- or two-storey bungalows. That is the opposite of the deep, narrow Victorian lots in the Annex or Leslieville. If you wanted to test whether the sixplex form is a downtown-only trick or something that works in the suburbs too, Scarborough North is the right place to run the experiment.
That is exactly what the City did. In the June 2025 sixplex decision, Ward 23 was included as a suburban pilot alongside eight core wards. The City’s sixplex study page is the official record.
Why the City thinks six units fit a suburban lot
The core wards justify a sixplex on tight lots through sheer transit access and existing density. Scarborough’s argument is different and, in a way, simpler: the lots are big. A typical suburban Scarborough parcel is wider and deeper than a downtown one, with room for a four-storey building holding up to six units without straining setbacks or lot coverage. The City’s finding is that six-unit forms fit typical large suburban lots — the size that made Scarborough feel low-density is the same size that makes a sixplex comfortable there.
This reframes the missing-middle conversation. The standard story is that density belongs near transit, on small urban lots. Ward 23 tests the inverse: that a generous suburban lot can absorb six units precisely because it has the land to do it.
How the pilot differs from the eight core wards
The eight Toronto & East York sixplex wards — Parkdale–High Park, Davenport, Spadina–Fort York, University–Rosedale, Toronto–St. Paul’s, Toronto Centre, Toronto–Danforth, and Beaches–East York — share a built form: narrow deep lots, laneways, Victorian and Edwardian semis, the strongest subway and streetcar coverage in the city. A sixplex there is often a conversion or infill on a constrained lot.
Ward 23 is the control group for a different hypothesis. Same permission — up to six units, four storeys — but on a built form that has nothing to do with laneways or pre-war density. If the form works in both places, the City has evidence that a sixplex is not inherently an Old-Toronto thing. The eight core wards prove it works where density already exists; Ward 23 tests whether it works where it does not.
What it signals for city-wide expansion
Here is the part to keep straight: sixplexes are still not city-wide. The June 2025 by-law covers nine wards. Everywhere else, the local councillor has to opt in through a defined process. The city-wide as-of-right form remains the fourplex adopted in 2023. Anyone telling you Toronto has city-wide sixplexes is wrong.
The pilot is the lever for changing that. The federal Housing Accelerator Fund ties money to ambition, and roughly $30M was flagged as at risk because the sixplex permission did not go city-wide. Ward 23’s role is to generate the suburban evidence — does the form actually get built, does it fit the lots, does it cause problems — that a future council would need to extend sixplexes beyond the nine wards. If the suburban pilot performs, the case for going wider gets much harder to argue against, and the federal funding pressure pushes in the same direction.
What a builder should take from it
If your lot is in one of the nine wards, including Scarborough North, you can plan around up to six units and four storeys today — confirm the parcel against By-law 654-2025. If it is anywhere else, plan the fourplex and watch whether your councillor opts in. The Scarborough pilot is the early read on where the next expansion goes.
For the full map of Toronto’s multiplex rules, start with the Toronto Multiplex hub.
