Building a home within a home 

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The shift in production builder floor plans that we began to see a few years ago has solidified into a trend: Ottawa’s home builders are making it easier to appeal to buyers who want a flexible home.

Whether it’s a multi-generational home, an income-generating property or a rethink of the traditional townhome or single, several options have been unveiled recently to more effectively meet buyer needs — and speak to affordability challenges.

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There are few statistics that track the trend. Among them, the number of permits issued by the city for what it could identify as these types of homes have risen and fallen over the past four years but consistently and significantly outpaced 2019, when 32 such permits were issued. In 2023, there were 87, a 171 per cent increase. What is clear is builders have had enough feedback from buyers that they are moving to accommodate.

In the past year, for instance:

• eQ Homes introduced its Duo Series of homes this February that come standard with a secondary dwelling unit in the basement. For its regular singles, it has also split the included specifications into two levels to offer a more affordable option for buyers.
• Glenview Homes opened a model home April 13 of its recently introduced multi-generational home the Prescott, which comes standard with a main-floor guest suite. The same day, it introduced the Reveli floor plan, which has optional main-floor and basement suites.
• Cardel Homes is about to launch a marketing initiative that touts the flexibility of its homes, such as the recently introduced Paxon single, which has options for a main-floor suite, separate side entrance, basement suite and second primary suite upstairs (a model showing the basement suite will open in August).
• Minto Communities introduced a flurry of new floor plans last year that proved popular, including three-storey singles with more square footage in a smaller footprint and two-storey towns with six bedrooms, including a main-floor guest suite.
• And several builders now have floor plans that offer a main-floor suite option.

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“Affordability is driving all this,” says Tanya Buckley, who is senior vice-president of Cardel’s Ontario Home Division. “Builders are revising, reviewing or introducing new specifications … to try to reduce costs, all while looking at the plans to say, ‘How can you maximize value out of your space?’ And that includes (to) get more people in or get additional use of your home.”

Glenview introduced the Prescott (as well as the Reveli) because buyers have been asking for it, says sales and marketing manager Kristy Brayton. “People want as many bedrooms as they can get.” Glenview has sold 14 Prescott floor plans since it was introduced last July, an impressive number in a tough market.

Will and Annalise Ridley are looking forward to moving into their Prescott home in October. They bought it for its current flexibility and future potential. “We’re leaving the door open to whatever happens in the future,” says Annalise. “We have an option in our house that could work.”

Similarly, eQ launched the Duo Series because of buyer feedback. The four plans all feature a separate basement suite with a side entrance. Prospective buyers are “intrigued by the concept,” says Tobin Kardish, eQ’s director of marketing and product development, although he acknowledges that it’s “an innovative housing solution … so it is taking time for the market to familiarize themselves with the benefits of owning two homes under one roof.”

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Metric Homes was one of the first builders to introduce income homes in 2007. “At that time, there was no regulatory provisions to allow that to happen, so after working with the city, we helped develop some of their regulations,” says co-owner and vice-president of operations Shawn Bernier.

Metric calls their income floor plans Home Within a Home and has sold about 15 over the years, with two currently under construction. Unlike other builder options, Metric’s income homes are designed with both living units above grade, each with its own basement. The homes have typically appealed to multi-generational families, but Metric is now seeing interest in the option to finish both basements as third and fourth separate units.

Phoenix Homes was an early adopter of secondary dwelling units, building its first Income Series home in 2018. The three homes in the series all have a separate unit in the basement, and Phoenix is developing two more floor plans to add to the portfolio.

“We launched it to provide flexibility,” says vice-president of operations Rahul Kochar, who was himself living in a multi-generational home at the time. Phoenix currently has six of its Income Series homes under construction, all at Pathways at Findlay Creek, where it had a model home of one of the floor plans — the Klondike — until it sold last year.

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Realtor Pritpal Mahal bought the model in part because of the income suite. He sees three uses for it: as a separate unit for his parents, who currently live with him and his family in the main house, as a space for visiting guests and as an income property. “It will really depend on how life changes.”

Townhomes are also seeing a shift, driven by affordability issues to give towns more of the features of a single. Multiple builders have introduced an optional layout that adds a bedroom and full bathroom in the basement; townhomes with a double garage are becoming more common; and there are some options to add a fourth upstairs bedroom in an interior unit, which more commonly have three bedrooms due to space and egress constraints.

eQ Homes has gone the opposite way with its towns, finding ways to cut costs to bring prices down, such as making the finished basement optional and switching some of the standard features to lower-priced choices, like laminate in place of hardwood.

While several builders are shifting gears to meet market demand, housing researcher Carolyn Whitzman — who takes a big picture approach to housing — feels more needs to be done. Whitzman is an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa and author of the forthcoming book Home Truth: Fixing Canada’s Housing Crisis, due out in October.

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The 2021 census showed nearly one million households out of about 15 million in Canada were composed of multiple generations of a family or two or more census families — the fastest growing type of households, with 45 per cent growth in the last 20 years, she notes.

“So, it’s not inconsiderable and it’s part of the demographic changes that have been going on for at least two generations, and I don’t feel that the housing stock’s really responded well to it.”

Similarly, she feels government, whatever the level, needs to do more. “They’re going in the right direction but not nearly fast enough, frankly.”

Government has generally been supportive of non-traditional or exclusionary zoning when it comes to housing, such as more units on a lot, but hasn’t yet embraced other non-traditional housing forms, be it co-housing, missing middle, family-friendly apartments or senior-friendly housing, she says.

“Housing is really complex, but at a basic level it’s really simple: Are we building the homes that people want, where they want them, at the prices they can afford? And we’re not doing a terrifically good job of that.”

To tackle some of the issues, home builders’ associations from the area will hold the Eastern Ontario Regional Housing Summit May 28 as “a showcase on the need for, and on how, regional co-ordination can ensure a sufficient housing supply that provides a variety of affordable housing options,” says Jason Burggraaf, executive director of the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association. “The answers to our housing issues are not limited within our city boundaries.”

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