York Gardens, 5 Parkway Forest Dr: A 1970 Tower and Townhouse Mix

York Gardens is a building most buyers misread from the listing alone. Condos.ca files it as a townhouse community, yet it also records 21 storeys and 399 suites, and most of what trades here sits in the tower at 5 Parkway Forest Drive. It is one of the more affordable ways into a larger suite near Don Mills and Sheppard, and the reason is its age. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

One corporation, two kinds of home

The two addresses tell you what is going on. Village Greenway is a townhouse street, and 5 Parkway Forest Drive is a 21-storey tower. Condos.ca groups both under one corporation, YCC-16, with 399 suites in total, and labels the whole property a townhouse community. The current listings, most of them on upper floors of the tower, show where the resale activity actually is.

That matters for how you compare it. A suite in the tower competes with other 1970s apartment-style condos near Don Mills and Sheppard. A townhouse on Village Greenway competes with townhomes in the surrounding complexes. Ask which part of the property a home is in before you look at any comparables.

One corporation also means one board, one budget and one reserve fund. Unless the declaration splits costs between the tower and the townhouses, every owner shares in the tower’s elevators and roof as well as the townhouse roofs and grounds. That is not a problem in itself, but read the declaration so you know how common expenses, parking and any exclusive-use areas are allocated.

Bigger suites from a different era

The current listings run from one-bedroom-plus-den suites up to three-bedroom-plus-den homes. Condos.ca bands a couple of them at 600 to 899 square feet, and several of the larger ones publish no size at all. Ask for a measured floor plan before you compare price per square foot, because guesses on older suites are often wrong.

In my experience, towers of this vintage were planned for owner-occupiers and families rather than investors. You tend to see separate dining areas, real closets and kitchens with walls, rather than the open kitchen along one wall that is standard in newer buildings. Confirm that on the floor plan of the suite you are looking at, because many have been renovated.

Plus-den layouts in a 1970 building sometimes started life as part of a dining room or a smaller bedroom. If a listing calls a room a den or a bedroom, check whether it has a window and a closet, and ask whether any walls were moved with the corporation’s approval.

Renovation quality varies widely in a building with 399 owners and 55 years of history. Look past the finishes at the panel, the plumbing and the windows, and have an inspector look at any suite where walls or kitchens have been changed.

How to read the fee

Fees on the current listings range from about $670 to $878 a month, and condos.ca works out an average of about $0.99 per square foot across active listings. On a per-foot basis that is at the higher end for this part of North York, but it is not a like-for-like comparison with a newer tower.

Condos.ca does not publish what the York Gardens fee includes. In many towers of this age, heat and water come from a central plant and are covered by the fee, and some include hydro as well. If that is the case here, the fee is paying bills you would otherwise pay on your own meter in a newer building. If it is not, the fee is simply high. The budget and status certificate will tell you which, so do not rely on a listing description.

The other side of a 55-year-old building is capital work. Windows, balcony guards, elevators, the garage, the boilers and the outdoor pool all have long but finite lives. Read the most recent reserve fund study for what has been replaced in the last ten years and what is scheduled in the next ten, and read two years of board minutes for any talk of major projects.

Parkway Forest, which keeps changing around it

York Gardens sits in the Parkway Forest pocket east of Don Mills Road. The City counts Parkway Forest as part of Henry Farm, while the Henry Farm community association describes its own area as the houses south of Sheppard between Leslie Street and Don Mills Road, so you will see both names on listings.

The most useful local change for residents was the Parkway Forest Community Centre at 55 Forest Manor Road, which opened in September 2015. Elad Canada built it, at a cost of about $20.5 million, under a Section 37 agreement with the City, to a design by Diamond Schmitt Architects, as part of its master-planned Emerald City community. It has a full gymnasium, a weight room, a fitness and dance studio, a youth space, a teaching kitchen and a YMCA child care centre.

Day to day, the case for this address is that Don Mills subway station and Fairview Mall are close, and Highway 401 and Highway 404 are minutes away by car. Transit times and walking details are in the panel on this page. The trade-off is that the area is still filling in with new towers, so expect construction somewhere nearby for years yet.

What York Gardens is asking, in aggregate

At the time of writing there were six York Gardens homes for sale and one for rent on condos.ca. Asking prices across the six ran from $349,000 to $585,000. That spread reflects the range of suite sizes in the corporation more than anything else.

The figure I would carry around is the fee: about $0.99 per square foot on average across active listings. Put it beside the fee per square foot at newer buildings near Don Mills and Sheppard, then adjust for what each fee includes. A fee that covers heat and water is not comparable with one that does not, and older towers with a central plant often look expensive on paper for that reason.

Asking prices are not sale prices. For what has actually sold and leased here over the past year, use the recorded figures on this page, and ask me for the building sold report if you want recent comparables matched to a specific suite size.

Building specifications

Amenities at York Gardens

An outdoor pool, a sauna and a tennis court are the kind of package built into 1970s complexes and rarely added to new ones. They are seasonal and they cost money to run, so check their condition and their lines in the budget rather than treating them as free.

Jatin’s honest take on York Gardens

York Gardens — 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.