Wild Briarway Townhouses: A 1972 Condo Townhouse Complex West of Leslie

Wild Briarway is one of the older condominium townhouse complexes in North York, registered in 1972, only a few years after Ontario first allowed condominium ownership at all. It has no lobby, no gym and no concierge. What it offers is a house-style front door on a quiet internal street in Bayview Village, which is a very different purchase from a tower suite on Sheppard. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A 1972 townhouse condo: what you are actually buying

These are townhouses held as condominium units. You get your own front door, stairs inside your home and no shared corridor, but the corporation owns and looks after the common elements and charges a monthly fee to do it. In complexes of this generation the corporation typically handles roofs, exteriors and grounds, and owners handle what is inside their walls.

A recent listing description here noted that the corporation looks after snow shovelling of the driveway and the backyard lawn. That is the kind of detail that separates one townhouse corporation from another, and it is worth confirming in the declaration and the rules for the specific unit you are looking at, because the line between owner and corporation responsibility is drawn differently in every complex.

Listings I reviewed describe two-storey layouts, and at least one unit has a built-in garage plus a driveway space. Do not assume every unit is the same. In a 1972 complex, some homes will have been renovated several times and others will be close to original, and the floor plan, basement finish and parking can vary from door to door.

Which Wild Briarway is this?

There is more than one condominium townhouse complex on Wild Briar Way and the streets around it, and the listing sites do not agree on how to group the addresses. condos.ca calls this page Wild Briarway 2 and files it under 116 Wild Briarway, which implies at least one other Wild Briarway complex nearby, and individual listings on the street also appear under other building pages.

Tangle Briar Way, a short walk away, is often assumed to be the same development. The records say otherwise: condos.ca dates the Tangle Briarway townhouses to 1983 with a different property manager, Whitehill Residential, while this complex is 1972 with ICC. Different registration years and different managers point to separate corporations, each with its own budget and reserve fund.

So the first thing I do with any listing here is confirm the corporation number on the status certificate and check that the unit, its parking and any exclusive-use yard all sit inside that corporation. The reserve fund study you read needs to belong to the corporation that owns your roof.

Fifty years in: the money questions

A complex built in 1972 has been through at least one full replacement cycle on most of its big components. Roofs, windows, exterior doors, siding and brick, fences, decks and the internal roads and drainage have all had to be replaced or repaired, or are due. That is normal, not a red flag. The question is whether it was paid for out of a healthy reserve fund or deferred.

Ask for the most recent reserve fund study, the current budget and the last two years of board minutes before you firm up. Look for what has already been done and what is scheduled in the next five to ten years. If the roofs and windows have been replaced recently, you are buying that work. If they are coming up and the fund is thin, a low fee today can turn into an increase or a special assessment later.

Inside the unit, a home of this age deserves a proper home inspection, not just a condo-style walkthrough. Electrical panels, plumbing, the furnace and air conditioning, and basement moisture are owner items in many townhouse corporations, and they are exactly where an older home can surprise you.

Daily life in this corner of Bayview Village

Wild Briar Way sits on the east side of Bayview Village, just west of Leslie Street, which the City treats as the neighbourhood’s eastern edge. In plain terms buyers use, it is near Leslie and Van Horne, north of Sheppard and south of Finch. The internal streets are quiet and residential, and Leslie carries the traffic past the complex.

Bayview Village as a whole was planned in the 1950s around curving streets that follow the land, and most of its houses are bungalows, split-levels and larger detached homes. A townhouse complex like this is one of the more affordable ways into the neighbourhood. The East Don Parklands run through the middle of Bayview Village with trails and bike paths, and Bayview Village Shopping Centre anchors the Bayview and Sheppard corner. Transit, schools and parks near this address are shown in the data panel on this page.

Pricing and fees: thin data, so use it carefully

At the time I wrote this there was nothing listed for sale in this complex and no active listing I could use to describe current asking prices. condos.ca does not publish a fee range or a fee-inclusion list for Wild Briarway, so I am not going to guess at either. Use the sold-data panel on this page for medians, and treat any single sale with caution, because townhouses here vary a lot by renovation and parking.

When you compare fees, compare what they buy. A townhouse corporation that handles roofs, exteriors, snow and lawn care is doing different work from one where owners carry more of it, and whether heat, water or cable are bundled changes the comparison again. Get the fee, what it includes and the reserve fund contribution from the status certificate before you weigh this against a condo apartment on Sheppard or another townhouse complex nearby. If you want the recent trades pulled for this exact complex, my building sold report is the fastest way to get them.

Building specifications

Jatin’s honest take on Wild Briarway Townhouses

Wild Briarway Townhouses — frequently asked questions

Looking at Toronto more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.