Briar Towns, Greenbriar Rd: 28 Large Townhomes With Rooftop Terraces

Briar Towns is what you buy when you want a house-sized home near Bayview and Sheppard but do not want a freehold lot to look after. It is 28 three-storey townhomes on two small sites facing each other across Greenbriar Road, each with its own rooftop terrace and parking below. There are only a handful of these, which is the appeal and the challenge. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

Two small sites, one corporation

Briar Towns was built on two land assemblies at the corner of Greenbriar Road and Dervock Crescent, a short walk south of Sheppard Avenue East. Each site originally held four two-storey semi-detached houses. The City considered two separate rezoning applications in 2017, each for 14 three-storey townhouses, and together they make up the 28 units now registered as TSCC-2826.

The planning reports show the same plan on both sites: two parallel blocks of townhouses. On each site one block holds eight back-to-back units and the other holds six through units, which have windows at both the front and the back. The two sites mirror each other across the road: on both, the back-to-back block is the one fronting Greenbriar Road, and the through units sit behind it, closer to the low-rise houses beyond.

That distinction is the first thing I would check on any listing here. A through unit gets light from two sides. A back-to-back unit shares its rear wall with another home and gets light from one side plus the roof. Both work, but they live differently, and they should not be priced the same.

Rooftop terraces and a shared underground garage

Every unit was designed with a private rooftop terrace, reached by a stair to a rooftop access structure. The planning reports put the roof at about 10.3 to 10.7 metres, with the top of the terrace access at about 13.5 to 14 metres. For a buyer coming from a condo apartment, a private roof deck of your own is the feature that makes these feel like houses.

Parking is underground, which is unusual for a project this small. Each site has one level of underground parking reached from Dervock Crescent, with 31 spaces: two tandem spaces per unit plus visitor spaces. The plan also gave each unit a storage locker and a bicycle space in the garage. Tandem means one car parks behind the other, so if two drivers in the household leave at different times, someone is moving a car every morning.

On at least one of the sites, the plan placed a landscaped courtyard of about 325 square metres between the two blocks. The garage ramp was moved so it runs under the rear yards, and front doors face the street on both Greenbriar and Dervock, which keeps the frontage looking like a residential street rather than a driveway.

House-sized floor plans in a condo corporation

The planning reports described all units as three-bedroom homes. Condos.ca now records sizes of about 2,082 to 2,461 square feet, and current listings describe some homes with an extra den or a fourth bedroom. That is likely a finished lower level or a flex room counted differently, so ask for the registered floor plan and the survey of the unit rather than relying on the listing description.

Living on three or four levels is a lifestyle choice. You get separation between the kitchen, the bedrooms and the roof, and plenty of space for a family or a home office. You also get a lot of stairs, which is worth thinking through if you are buying to age in place.

A street that is changing around you

Greenbriar Road sits inside the Bessarion node of the Sheppard East subway corridor, and the City designates this area for apartment buildings. The townhomes are a lower-scale piece of that picture. To the north, Bayview at the Village has brought a ten-storey building and townhome blocks to the Sheppard and Greenbriar corner, and SkyriseCities has reported further proposals nearby, including a 12-storey building at 635 Sheppard East and 22-storey proposals at 680 Sheppard East and 26 Greenbriar Road.

For an owner here, that means construction activity on the surrounding blocks for some years and more neighbours using the same streets. It also means more shops and services arriving over time. Transit, school and park details are in the data panel on this page.

What Briar Towns is asking, and what the fees cover

With only 28 units, listings are scarce. When I checked, two homes were for sale, asking from $1,299,000 to $1,598,000, and none were for lease. The building average on condos.ca sits around $601 per square foot, which is well below what new condo apartments in the area trade at per square foot, because you are buying a lot of floor area in one home.

Monthly fees on those listings were about $581, which is roughly $0.24 to $0.28 per square foot across the size range. That is low, as you would expect for townhomes with no concierge, no pool and no shared elevators to maintain. The fee inclusions are not published, so confirm whether water is included and how utilities are metered on the status certificate.

With so few sales, a single trade can move the averages. The 12-month figures in the data panel are the best guide, and I would price any home here against nearby freehold houses and newer condo townhomes too. You can book a call and I will pull those comparables for you.

Building specifications

Amenities at Briar Towns

There is no amenity floor here, and that is by design. The amenities are your own roof terrace, your own outdoor space and a parking spot under your feet, which is why the fees are a fraction of what a tower charges.

Jatin’s honest take on Briar Towns

Briar Towns — frequently asked questions

Looking at Willowdale, Yonge & Sheppard, Bayview Village and North York Centre more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.