New Lawrence Heights Towns, Turtle Island Rd: New Townhouses by Yorkdale

The New Lawrence Heights townhouses on Turtle Island Road are one of the few ways to buy a new three-bedroom home with parking this close to Yorkdale for under a million dollars. They are part of the townhouse release Metropia and Context built in the Lawrence Heights rebuild, and they come with a low monthly fee. You are, however, buying into a neighbourhood that is still under construction. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

Townhouses on new streets in a 100-acre rebuild

Lawrence Heights is a roughly 100-acre community that Toronto Community Housing is rebuilding in four phases, bounded by Lawrence Avenue, Ranee Avenue, Flemington Road and Varna Drive. The plan replaces 1,208 social housing homes and adds about 4,092 market homes, with new streets, parks, a school, a community centre and retail. Toronto Community Housing currently anticipates overall completion in 2039.

Phase one, developed by Heights Development, a venture of Context and Metropia, delivered the two Yorkdale Condominiums towers, replacement rental buildings and a network of new streets. Turtle Island Road and Hooyo Terrace are among those phase-one streets; Toronto Community Housing lists Turtle Island Road as completed in 2023, with Hooyo Terrace and several other new streets due in 2026.

Sources label the phases differently. Metropia marketed the townhouses as its second release, describing 224 homes: 165 traditional townhouses and 59 back-to-backs. Toronto Community Housing places these streets in phase one of the overall revitalization. Both describe the same neighbourhood; just be aware of it when you read about “phase two”.

This corporation, TSCC-3129, covers 40 of those homes. Other parts of the townhouse release are registered as separate corporations, so when you compare fees or rules, make sure you are looking at the right one.

What you get in the house

Metropia’s launch material described homes of about 1,350 to 2,552 square feet with three to five bedrooms, set along rear lanes, with one or two parking spaces and, in many cases, a backyard. The current listings in this corporation are all three-bedroom homes.

The specified finishes were what you would expect for a mid-market new build: stainless steel appliances, quartz kitchen counters, glass tile backsplashes and laminate flooring. Plan to upgrade some of that over time if you are used to higher-end resale homes.

Know which type you are buying. A traditional townhouse has windows front and back and usually a yard; a back-to-back shares its rear wall and gets light from one side only. The two live very differently, even at the same square footage, and they trade differently at resale.

Ask for the builder’s floor plan rather than relying on listing photos. In townhouses of this type, the layout of the ground floor, whether it opens to the yard or sits over parking, and the number of stairs between the kitchen and the bedrooms make more difference to daily life than a hundred square feet either way.

Streets designed to be green

Metropia highlighted the streetscape as part of the pitch: permeable pavers, green bump-outs and double rows of street trees. On new streets, those trees will take years to mature, but the bones of a pleasant, walkable block are there.

Homes set along rear lanes keep cars and parking off the front of the homes, which makes the street side feel more like a traditional neighbourhood. Check snow clearing and garbage arrangements for the lanes in the status certificate, since those are often handled by the condominium rather than the City.

Also check what the corporation allows you to change outside. Fences, decks, satellite dishes, exterior paint and front plantings are often governed by the rules in a townhouse condominium, and those rules are worth reading before you plan a summer of yard projects.

Living in a neighbourhood mid-build

The location is the main attraction. Yorkdale Shopping Centre and Allen Road are close, Highway 401 is a short drive, and the shops and restaurants on Bathurst and Lawrence are nearby. The data panel on this page shows the exact transit, schools and walkability figures.

The trade-off is construction. Toronto Community Housing expects later phases to continue into the late 2030s, which means cranes, trucks and road closures in the blocks around you for years. The City is designing a community and recreation centre as a key piece of the next phase, and parks and retail arrive step by step. If you need a finished street today, look at an established neighbourhood. If you can live with change, buying early in a rebuild can work in your favour.

The revitalization is mixed-income by design, with replacement social housing and market homes on the same new streets. That mix is the basis of the whole plan, and it is the reason new parks, roads and services are being built here at all.

Pricing and the low fee

At the time of writing, the three active listings were asking between $785,000 and $899,000, with monthly fees between about $267 and $325. For a new three-bedroom home with parking this close to Yorkdale, that is an entry price worth comparing carefully against resale houses in the surrounding streets.

The fee is low because there is little to maintain in common: no lobby, no elevators and no amenity rooms. It typically pays for things like the lanes, landscaping, snow clearing and insurance on shared elements, but I could not confirm the exact inclusions, so read the budget in the status certificate.

Remember that you carry the house costs yourself. Roof, windows, furnace and the interior are usually the owner’s responsibility in this kind of corporation, but the declaration decides, so confirm who repairs what before you buy. Aggregate sale figures appear in the data panel on this page.

Building specifications

Amenities at New Lawrence Heights Townhouses

There is no shared amenity package here, and that is the point: your amenities are your own yard, parking and front door, plus the parks being built as the revitalization continues. That keeps the monthly fee low.

Jatin’s honest take on New Lawrence Heights Townhouses

New Lawrence Heights Townhouses — frequently asked questions

Looking at York Mills, Don Mills, Lawrence Park, Bathurst Manor and midtown-north Toronto more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.