Top 10 things no one will tell you about The Kingsway, Etobicoke — except your local real estate expert

Published 31 August 2026. Written by Jatin Dua, Broker of Record at RE/MAX Quantum Realty, 799 The Queensway, Etobicoke. Every claim below is quoted from a City of Toronto, TRCA, TTC, MPAC, Ontario Ministry of Education or Ontario Land Tribunal document, named and dated, and read on 31 August 2026. Where a figure is my own calculation from open data rather than a published statistic, I say so. Where a document is silent, this page says so instead of guessing.

The Kingsway is the neighbourhood people describe most confidently and document least. Almost everything commonly said about it — the covenants, the architectural controls, the heritage protection, the golf tournament — turns out on inspection to be either from a secondary source, from the wrong side of the Humber, or simply wrong. What is documented is more interesting than the folklore, and considerably more useful if you are about to spend two million dollars here.

One geographic note before the list, because it changes everything else. The City’s official neighbourhood is Kingsway South, number 15 in the 158-neighbourhood model, and its southern boundary runs essentially along Bloor Street West through the retail strip. Where I quote census or City statistics below, they are for Kingsway South, and I say so.

1“The Kingsway” is not a City geography, and the boundary runs down the middle of your main street

This sounds like pedantry until you try to find out who to write to about a development, or you quote a census figure at a listing appointment.

The City’s official neighbourhood is Kingsway South, Neighbourhood 15, in the 158-neighbourhood model. Its boundary runs essentially along Bloor Street West, through the retail strip. The south side of Bloor is in Stonegate-Queensway, Neighbourhood 16. The western end abuts Islington.

There is a second split that matters more in practice. The Kingsway sits in two wards. Applications appear under Ward 3, Etobicoke-Lakeshore and Ward 2, Etobicoke Centre, both reporting to Etobicoke York Community Council. If you have written to a councillor about a Bloor Street application and never heard back, this is usually why.

2There is no Heritage Conservation District here, and eleven listed properties fall off the Register on 1 January 2027

This is the item that surprises people who moved here specifically for the architecture.

The City’s Heritage Conservation Districts & Studies page lists 27 designated HCDs. There is no Kingsway entry in any category — not designated, not under appeal, not in development, not among the completed HCD studies. The nearest district is across the river: the Teiaiagon-Baby Point HCD, adopted by Council on 17–18 December 2024 under By-law 1367-2024.

Inside the Kingsway South boundary the City’s Heritage Register carries fifteen properties, of which only four are Part IV designated:

Address	Status	By-law / date	On the register as
3028–3030 Bloor St W	Part IV designated	By-law 75-2008, enacted 30 Jan 2008	“Kingsway Theatre, 1941”
35 Old Mill Rd	Part IV designated	By-law 83-109, passed by Etobicoke City Council 14 Nov 1983	“The Old Mill”
35 Kingsway Cres	Part IV designated	By-law 217-2019, enacted 31 Jan 2019	—
12 King Georges Rd	Part IV designated	By-law 242-2004, enacted 3 Mar 2004	“George Skelding House, 1932”
86, 116, 125 Kingsway Cres	Listed only	listed 27 Sep 2006	—
7, 9, 23, 30, 118 Government Rd	Listed only	listed 27 Sep 2006	—
71–73 Old Mill Rd	Listed only	listed 27 Sep 2006	—
86 Montgomery Rd	Listed only	listed 27 Sep 2006	“Etobicoke High School”

Now the part with a date on it. Under the Ontario Heritage Act as amended by Bill 23, listed but non-designated properties must be removed from the Register if Council has not stated an intention to designate them by the deadline, and cannot be re-listed for five years after removal. The City’s own Heritage Register Review page states that Council “is required to state its intention by January 1, 2027 or a later date prescribed by the Minister,” that approximately 4,000 properties are currently listed, and that “only a portion … will be able to be designated within this time frame.” The City’s Heritage Formerly Listed dataset puts it more bluntly: “the vast majority will expire on January 1, 2027.”

On the covenants: the architectural controls people describe — architect-approved plans, Tudor or English preferred, no semi-detached, stone, stucco or brick only, no home businesses except doctors and dentists, running with the land for thirty years — come from the Etobicoke Historical Society, not from a registered instrument I was able to read. The City’s Baby Point HCD Plan does contain an appendix titled Home Smith and Company Building Restrictions and quotes one covenant verbatim, but that document is about the Baby Point survey across the river. I am attributing, not asserting. If a covenant matters to your purchase, have your lawyer pull the registered instruments on title.

3The multiplex by-law gave you four units, not four units of floor area — and the six-unit reform does not apply here

Half the pro forma spreadsheets circulating about Kingsway lots are wrong for this reason.

City Council adopted the Multiplex Study on 10, 11 and 12 May 2023 (item 2023.PH3.16), enacting By-law 473-2023 (Official Plan) and By-law 474-2023 (Zoning). By-law 474-2023 amends the RD zone so that a dwelling unit is permitted in a Detached House, Duplex, Triplex and Fourplex, and sets maximum height in RD at the Height Overlay value or 10.0 metres where none is mapped.

Here is what it does not do. The zoning on Kingsway detached lots, from the City’s Zoning By-law — Zoning Area open dataset, reads like this:

Typical zone string	Minimum frontage	Minimum lot area	Maximum density
RD (f15.0; a555; d0.45)	15.0 m	555 m²	0.45 FSI
RD (f13.5; a510; d0.45)	13.5 m	510 m²	0.45 FSI
RD (f18.0; a510; d0.45)	18.0 m	510 m²	0.45 FSI

By-law 474-2023 did not change density. The d0.45 cap survives it. Four units as-of-right is not four units of floor area as-of-right — you are dividing the same permitted building into more units, not building a bigger one.

The second half of this is jurisdictional. On 25–26 June 2025 Council adopted By-laws 653 and 654 enabling six-unit residential buildings — but, in the City’s own words, only “in Toronto & East York District and Ward 23.” The City states plainly: “Four-unit multiplexes are permitted city-wide. Six-unit permissions currently vary depending on location.” The Kingsway is in Wards 2 and 3. Four units, not six.

Garden suites are the relevant additional tool here, permitted under By-laws 100-2022 and 101-2022, adopted 2 February 2022 and now in force apart from one property-specific appeal. Laneway suites are a separate framework, and The Kingsway’s street grid is largely laneway-free.

4Royal York is the one station on this stretch of Line 2 with no approved transit-oriented policy

This is the finding I did not expect, and it took loading the City’s own shapefile to see it.

On 15 August 2025 the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing approved Official Plan Amendments for 120 of Toronto’s Major Transit Station Areas and Protected Major Transit Station Areas. The City records that “the Minister’s decision is final and cannot be appealed.” Inside an approved station area, the required zoning permissions are substantial:

Site designation	Within 200 m of the station	200–500 m
Mixed Use / Apartment Neighbourhoods / Regeneration Areas	Up to 30 storeys, 8.0 FSI	Up to 20 storeys, 6.0 FSI
Neighbourhoods, on a Major Street	6 storeys	—
Neighbourhoods, elsewhere in the station area	4 storeys

Old Mill is a Protected MTSA (SASP 635). Islington is SASP 627. Kipling is 626. Jane is 650. Runnymede is 651. Royal York is not among the 120 — and it is not among the 14 the Minister deferred either. Those fourteen are East Harbour, Exhibition, Scarborough Centre, Gerrard-Carlaw, Yonge-Steeles, Rouge Hill, Milliken, McCowan, Don Valley, Long Branch, Scarborough GO, Guildwood GO, Finch West and Sentinel. Royal York simply is not there.

This is not an oversight of long standing. City Planning’s 2022 attachment on 57 PMTSAs and 40 MTSAs lists Royal York as a PMTSA on Line 2 requiring a further local area study. That study has not produced an approved delineation. As at 11 June 2026, the Planning and Housing Committee directed staff to assess the implications of Bill 98, Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act, 2026 (Royal Assent 2 June 2026) before bringing implementing MTSA zoning to Council. No timeline is published.

Two related consequences of the 15 August 2025 approvals, for the station areas that are approved: parking cannot be required in a Protected MTSA under the Planning Act, and inclusionary zoning has applied since that date, requiring 5 per cent affordable housing held for 25 years in developments that sit inside both an approved PMTSA and an IZ Market Area. On 29 January 2026 the Province filed Ontario Regulation 15/26 on inclusionary zoning.

5Old Mill is the last station on the entire TTC subway network to become accessible

Not one of the last. The last.

The TTC’s Easier Access Program Schedule lists College, King, Museum and Spadina for 2026, Islington for 2027, and Old Mill for 2028. Nothing follows it.

The TTC’s Old Mill project page describes two elevators giving a barrier-free path from street level to the eastbound and westbound platforms, plus signage, finish repairs, tactile attention tiles and CCTV along the accessible path, and states that “the elevators are scheduled to be in service in the end of 2028,” with the project “estimated to last approximately 4 years.”

The money and the contractor are on the record. On 29 January 2025 the TTC Board approved a $25.69 million contract to Maystar General Contractors Inc., with construction starting in the second quarter of 2025. At that date 57 of 70 stations were accessible. The release ends with the sentence that makes this item: “Once Old Mill is complete, all 70 TTC stations will be accessible.”

Royal York, by contrast, is accessible, with three elevators — street entrance to concourse, and concourse to each Line 2 platform. Surface routes there are the 15 Evans, 48 Rathburn, 66 Prince Edward, 73 Royal York, 76 Royal York South, 149 Etobicoke-Bloor, 300 Bloor-Danforth Blue Night and 315 Evans-Brown’s Line.

One more piece of Line 2 infrastructure worth knowing: the TTC awarded the Line 2 Automatic Train Control contract in 2026 to Hitachi Rail Canada Inc., replacing the legacy fixed-block signalling. Design work is under way with installation, testing and commissioning in phases. No completion date and no capacity figures have been published, so I am not going to quote any.

6A 7-storey proposal became a 29-storey application, and Council voted in May to fight it

This is the single most consequential live file on the strip, and its history is the story.

Year	File	What was proposed on this land
2016	16 141156 WET 05 OZ	“A 7-storey 195 unit condominium project with retail at grade” at 2915–2917 Bloor St W. Closed.
2021	21 237694 WET 03 CD	Pre-application consultation, “proposal for a mid rise mixed use development” across 2915, 2917, 2939 and 2943. Closed.
2025	25 208823 WET 03 OZ	29 storeys, 423 dwelling units including 7 rental replacement units, 26,114 m² of gross floor area, FSI approximately 8.2. Under appeal.

The 2025 application was submitted on 12 August 2025, with the statutory Notice of Application dated 10 October 2025. The applicant appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal. Etobicoke York Community Council considered the matter on 29 April 2026 and City Council adopted item 2026.EY31.3 on 20–21 May 2026, directing the City Solicitor and staff “to oppose the application at the Ontario Land Tribunal hearing and continue negotiations with the applicant,” and authorising the City to seek conditions of approval if the Tribunal allows the appeal.

Now connect it to item 4. I geocoded 2915 Bloor Street West to 43.64828 N, -79.50660 W, reprojected it into the coordinate system of the City’s approved MTSA layer and tested it against all 120 polygons. It falls inside none of them. It sits in the Royal York gap. So the provincial 30-storey floor does not apply to this site — which means the 29 storeys are being sought on planning merits at the Tribunal, not claimed as of right.

The rest of the strip, for context:

Address	File	Status	Proposal
2947–2969 Bloor St W	22 139459 WET 03 OZ	Under Review	7-storey mixed use, retail and amenity at grade
3100–3200 Bloor St W & 4–8 Montgomery Rd	20 151103 WET 03 OZ	Tribunal approved	16-storey mixed use
3100 / 3200 Bloor St W	21 229300 WET 03 CD	Under Review	Pre-application, 13 storeys, 319 units
3005 Bloor St W / 14 Humbervale Blvd	17 267906 WET 05 OZ	Closed	7 storeys, 51 condominium units
3326 Bloor St W (Bloor-Islington Housing Now)	21 249190 WET 03 OZ	Closed	City-initiated: four towers, 32 to 55 storeys, 1,415 units and a TTC bus terminal

7Bloor West Village got three planning tools. The Kingsway strip, one bridge west, got none of them

Cross the Humber eastbound and the planning framework changes completely. Almost nobody knows this, and it is entirely documented.

The Bloor West Village Avenue Study (planning study 17 103255 WSP 00 TM) covers Bloor Street West “between Keele Street and the Humber River” — approximately 2.7 kilometres and more than 260 properties, bounded by the Jane, Runnymede, High Park and Keele stations. The staff report is dated 10 November 2025 and Council adopted the study and the Bloor West Village Urban Design Guidelines on 16 December 2025. Bloor West Village also appears on the City’s list of completed Heritage Conservation District studies.

So the tally, on the same street, a river apart:

Planning tool	Bloor West Village	The Kingsway strip
Avenue Study	Yes — adopted 16 Dec 2025	No
Mid-rise urban design guidelines	Yes — adopted with the study	No
Heritage Conservation District study	Yes — completed	No
Approved Major Transit Station Area	Yes — Jane 650, Runnymede 651	Old Mill 635 only; Royal York absent

What The Kingsway does have is the citywide framework, which is real but blunt. The Avenues Policy Review Phase One — Official Plan Amendment 778, adopted 5 February 2025, in effect 14 March 2025 and confirmed by the Ontario Land Tribunal in OLT-25-000221 — sets mid-rise height by right-of-way width: a 20-metre right-of-way permits 6 storeys, 27 metres permits 8, 30 metres permits 9, 36 metres permits 11 and 45 metres permits 14. Phase Two, adopted 16–17 December 2025, covers Wards 9 and 11 — not The Kingsway.

And the Official Plan itself is on the side of stability. The June 2026 consolidation, Chapter 4, section 4.1, says “development in established Neighbourhoods will respect and reinforce the existing physical character of each geographic neighbourhood”; that proposals must be “materially consistent with the prevailing physical character” and, where the broader and immediate contexts differ significantly, “the immediate context will be considered to be of greater relevance”; and, in policy 7, that “proposals for intensification of land on major streets in Neighbourhoods are not encouraged by the policies of this Plan.”

8The real built-form control here is not zoning — it is the Committee of Adjustment, and it says yes

Every third house on these streets has been rebuilt or heavily added to. That did not happen through rezonings. It happened through minor variances.

Measure	Result
Closed applications since 2017	135 — 130 minor variance, 5 consent
Approved	122
Refused	6
Withdrawn / blank	1 / 6
Approval rate of decided applications	about 95 per cent
Applications that reached a tribunal	3, all approved

By street, the busiest are Prince Edward (31), Government (22), Kingsway (22), King Georges (11) and Strath (11). By filing year the peaks are 2017 (24) and 2021 (23), with 12 filed in 2025 and 4 already in 2026.

9On a ravine lot, every tree is protected regardless of size — and the fines run to $100,000 per tree

The private tree by-law is widely known. The ravine by-law, which is much stricter and covers the valley-backing lots people pay the most for, is not.

Municipal Code Chapter 813, Article III is the one people know. Section 813-12 requires a permit to injure, destroy or remove a tree with “at least one stem that has a diameter measurement of 30 centimetres or more,” measured at 1.4 metres above ground. Section 813-6(D) adds that “no person shall bury the roots, mark, cut, break, peel or deface any part of a tree.” Section 813-29 sets a minimum fine of $500 and a maximum of $100,000 per tree, plus a special fine available under the City of Toronto Act.
Municipal Code Chapter 658, the Ravine and Natural Feature Protection by-law, is the one that catches people. Section 658-2A: “No person shall injure, destroy, remove or permit the injury, destruction or removal of any tree on any land in a protected area” without authorisation. Any species. Any size. Section 658-2B extends the same control to placing fill or refuse and to altering the grade of the land. Penalties under 658-12 are a minimum $500 per tree and a maximum $100,000, with a separate $100,000 special fine option — and, for continuing offences such as fill placement or permit non-compliance, $500 to $10,000 per day.

In a protected area you need a permit not only for trees of any size but for “changing topography by excavation or adding soil,” for “placing or dumping of fill,” and for constructing or replacing structures or retaining walls. Replacement trees “become protected by the bylaw from the time they are planted, regardless of size.” Where there is not enough space to replant, cash-in-lieu is $583 per tree, and the guarantee deposit for trees planted in a protected area is also $583 per tree — described by the City as “120 per cent of the cost of planting and maintaining a tree for a period of two years.”

Two more layers sit on top on the valley side. TRCA requires a permit under Ontario Regulation 41/24 for “building new homes or replacing existing homes, home additions, garages and sheds, decks, pools, landscaping, placing or excavation of fill” in a regulated area, and warns that “flood plains, in particular, are not always apparent.” Its published allowances include a stable slope allowance of three times the height of the slope, and TRCA states that its regulation limit “does not represent a development limit.” For a ravine-backing addition, TRCA requires the grading plan to show the setback from the top of slope and confirms that line by site visit — there is no published universal number.

And a point about erosion that costs real money: TRCA states it is “not compelled legally to assist private landowners with erosion control works,” and that where it recommends work benefiting private property the landowner must sign a binding agreement to “contribute to the cost of the project.”

For completeness on the flood standard: TRCA’s regulatory flood plain is the more severe of the Regional Storm — Hurricane Hazel, 15 October 1954, 285 millimetres of rain in 48 hours — or the 100-year storm, and for most of its jurisdiction the Regional Storm governs. TRCA’s own map viewer covers riverine flooding only, is “a generalized representation … and should not be relied upon for the precise limits,” and is updated on a ten-year cycle. TRCA runs a live gauge called Humber River at Old Mill.

10Your property tax is calculated on a 2016 assessment. Your land transfer tax was raised on 1 April 2026

This is the arithmetic that most affects what a Kingsway purchase actually costs, and it is two unrelated policies pulling in opposite directions.

On the holding side, the clock stopped in 2016. MPAC states plainly that “property assessments for the 2026 property tax year will continue to be based on fully phased-in January 1, 2016 current values.” The postponement was extended through the end of the 2021–2024 cycle by a regulation filed 16 August 2023, and MPAC does not say when the next province-wide reassessment will occur. Toronto’s 2026 residential rate is 0.767311 per cent in total — City 0.605295, Education 0.153000, City Building Fund 0.009016.
On the buying side, the rate went up five months ago. Council passed the amendment on 17 December 2025 and the graduated Municipal Land Transfer Tax rates took effect 1 April 2026 for properties containing one or two single-family residences:

Value of consideration	Rate
Up to and including $55,000	0.5%
$55,000.01 to $250,000	1.0%
$250,000.01 to $400,000	1.5%
$400,000.01 to $2,000,000	2.0%
$2,000,000.01 to $3,000,000	2.5%
Over $3,000,000 to $4,000,000	4.40%
Over $4,000,000 to $5,000,000	5.45%
Over $5,000,000 to $10,000,000	6.50%
Over $10,000,000 to $20,000,000	7.55%
Over $20,000,000	8.60%

Why this bites here specifically. The 2021 census median value of owner-occupied dwellings in Kingsway South was $2,000,000, with an average of $2,044,000. The 2.5 per cent band begins at $2,000,000.01 and the graduated luxury bands begin above $3,000,000. The Kingsway is one of a small number of Toronto neighbourhoods where the median house sits exactly on the hinge of the new table — and where a meaningful share of transactions sits above it. This is on top of, not instead of, the provincial land transfer tax.

Also on the record: the Municipal Non-Resident Speculation Tax, effective 1 January 2025 under Council item 2024.EX11.1, adds 10 per cent of the purchase amount for non-resident buyers of certain residential properties. MLTT administration fee is $102.56 plus HST. I am not quoting a first-time buyer rebate figure because I could not verify one from the City’s own page.

And one line every buyer of a vacant or recently vacant house should read twice. The Vacant Home Tax is 3 per cent of Current Value Assessment from the 2024 taxation year, applying where a property was vacant for six months or more, with properties that miss the 30 April declaration deemed vacant. The City states that on a sale “the Vacant Home Tax forms a lien on the property, and the purchaser will be held responsible for payment.” False declaration carries a fine of up to $10,000, and late payment interest runs at 1.25 per cent monthly.

Four more, because they come up every week

The basement flooding study area is literally named after your street, and the works are not scheduled. The City’s Basement Flooding Protection Program lists Study Area 51, “Royal York Road/Kingsway,” with its Environmental Assessment completed in 2023, and Study Area 49, “Islington-Bloor, Park Lawn, South Kingsway,” completed in 2022. The City ran EA studies in 67 areas between 2006 and 2024. But the four active construction zones on the Etobicoke Centre programme page — Martin Grove/Wellesworth/Gentian, The Westway/Kipling, Chapman Road and Dixon Road/Kipling — are none of them in The Kingsway, and I could not locate a published construction schedule or Project File Report for Study Area 51. The study is complete; the works are not underway. What you can do today is claim the subsidy: for work completed on or after 12 November 2025, up to $6,650 per property — 80 per cent of a plumbing assessment to $500, a backwater valve to $1,600 per device for up to two devices, a sump pump to $2,250, a battery backup to $300 and pipe severance to $400. You have two years from installation to apply.

Forty-two sewer outfalls discharge into the Humber corridor beside The Kingsway, and not all of them are storm. From the City’s Sewer Outfalls open dataset (modified 21 August 2026; 1,919 outfalls citywide), within a box covering the Humber corridor next to The Kingsway and Old Mill there are 42 outfalls — 34 storm, 5 sanitary or combined sewer overflow, 2 emergency overflow and 1 combined sewer overflow. That box spans both banks, so some are on the York side; the honest phrasing is “in the Humber corridor beside The Kingsway,” not “in The Kingsway.” The counting is mine; the dataset is the City’s.

You cannot know in the spring whether the school will take your child in September. The 2024-25 Ministry of Education enrolment file records Lambton Kingsway Junior Middle School at 690, Etobicoke Collegiate Institute at 1,335 and Bishop Allen Academy at 1,460. TDSB’s Out-of-Area Admissions policy P013 replaced Optional Attendance, on the board’s own stated rationale that the old policy created “an imbalance of enrolment in our secondary schools” and forced “schools to compete with each other to attract more students.” As at 31 August 2026 the published status for both Lambton Kingsway and Etobicoke CI reads: “Out-of-Area status for 2027-2028 will be updated in November 2026.” And separately, on the Catholic side: Bishop Allen Academy temporarily relocates from 721 Royal York Road to 2 St. Andrews Boulevard from September 2026 because of construction, per the school’s own page. I am not printing capacity or utilisation percentages for any of these schools, because Ontario’s School Facility Inventory System dataset has no downloadable resources attached and I could not verify a figure.

You cannot run this house as an Airbnb unless you live in it. Municipal Code Chapter 547, as amended by By-law 503-2024 in force 1 January 2025, states that an operator “shall be deemed to have only one principal residence at any time” and that no operator shall rent or advertise a property for short-term rental “unless it is the operator’s principal residence.” Municipal Licensing and Standards can demand proof within 10 days. Entire-unit rentals are capped at 180 nights per calendar year; partial-unit rentals have no night cap but are limited to three bedrooms. Registration is $390 annually. Offences carry a fine “not exceeding $100,000” per contravention, a special fine sized to remove the economic advantage, and up to $10,000 for each day the offence continues. One correction to something widely repeated: the three-bedroom limit is not in Chapter 547 — I searched the full text and the word “bedroom” does not appear. It comes from the City’s administrative rules. And I am not quoting the Municipal Accommodation Tax rate, because the City’s own pages currently disagree with each other and the temporary increase expired on 31 July 2026.

What this list is not

It is not an argument against buying here. The Kingsway is 66.9 per cent detached houses on real lots, backing a Canadian Heritage River, eleven minutes from Bloor-Yonge on a subway line that is getting new signalling, with a designated 1941 cinema on its main street and a Committee of Adjustment that has said yes to nineteen of every twenty owners who asked. Very few Toronto neighbourhoods hold value the way this one has.

The point is that every one of the ten items above is knowable before you sign, and almost none of it is in a listing. The folklore about this neighbourhood is unusually strong and unusually unsourced. That is the entire difference between working with someone who has read the by-law and working with someone who has read the brochure.

Frequently asked questions

Is The Kingsway a heritage conservation district?

No. The City of Toronto’s Heritage Conservation Districts and Studies page lists 27 designated districts and The Kingsway does not appear in any category – not designated, not under appeal, not in development, and not among the completed HCD studies. The nearest district is Teiaiagon-Baby Point, across the Humber River, adopted by Council on 17 and 18 December 2024 under By-law 1367-2024.

What happens to listed Kingsway properties on 1 January 2027?

Under the Ontario Heritage Act as amended by Bill 23, listed but non-designated properties must be removed from the Heritage Register if Council has not stated an intention to designate them by 1 January 2027 or a later date prescribed by the Minister, and cannot be re-listed for five years after removal. The City states approximately 4,000 properties are currently listed and that only a portion can be designated in that time frame. Eleven of the fifteen Heritage Register properties inside Kingsway South are listed only.

Can I build a fourplex on a Kingsway lot?

Four units are permitted as of right city-wide under By-law 474-2023, adopted by Council on 10, 11 and 12 May 2023. But that by-law did not change density, and Kingsway detached zoning carries a maximum density of 0.45 FSI. Four units as of right is not four units of floor area as of right. The six-unit permissions Council adopted in June 2025 under By-laws 653 and 654 apply only in Toronto and East York District and Ward 23, so they do not apply here.

Is Royal York station a Major Transit Station Area?

Not among the 120 the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing approved on 15 August 2025, and not among the 14 that were withheld either. Old Mill is a Protected MTSA, SASP 635, and Islington is SASP 627. There is roughly 750 metres of Bloor Street West centred on Royal York with no approved station-area policy. City Planning’s 2022 attachment listed Royal York as a PMTSA requiring a further local area study.

Is Old Mill subway station accessible?

Not yet. The TTC’s Easier Access Program Schedule lists Old Mill for 2028, after Islington in 2027 and College, King, Museum and Spadina in 2026. The TTC’s project page states the elevators are scheduled to be in service at the end of 2028. On 29 January 2025 the TTC Board approved a $25.69 million contract to Maystar General Contractors, and the release states that once Old Mill is complete all 70 TTC stations will be accessible – making it the last station on the network.

What is proposed at 2915 to 2943 Bloor Street West?

A 29-storey mixed-use building with 423 dwelling units including 7 rental replacement units, 26,114 square metres of gross floor area and a floor space index of approximately 8.2, filed 12 August 2025 as file 25 208823 WET 03 OZ. The applicant appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal and City Council adopted item 2026.EY31.3 on 20 and 21 May 2026, directing the City Solicitor and staff to oppose the application at the hearing. The same land carried a 7-storey, 195-unit proposal in 2016.

Do I need a permit to remove a tree in The Kingsway?

On an ordinary lot, yes for any tree with a stem of 30 centimetres or more in diameter measured at 1.4 metres, under Municipal Code Chapter 813. On a lot inside a Ravine and Natural Feature Protection Area – which covers the Humber valley lands here – Chapter 658 prohibits injuring, destroying or removing any tree of any species and any size without authorisation, and also covers grading, fill and retaining walls. Penalties run from a $500 minimum to $100,000 per tree, with continuing offences at $500 to $10,000 per day.

How much land transfer tax will I pay on a Kingsway house?

Toronto’s Municipal Land Transfer Tax became graduated on 1 April 2026 for properties with one or two single-family residences, following a Council amendment passed 17 December 2025. It reaches 2.5 per cent from $2,000,000.01 to $3,000,000, then 4.40 per cent over $3 million, 5.45 per cent over $4 million, 6.50 per cent over $5 million, 7.55 per cent over $10 million and 8.60 per cent over $20 million. That is on top of the provincial land transfer tax. The 2021 census median owner-occupied dwelling value in Kingsway South was $2,000,000.

Why is my property tax based on a 2016 value?

Because the province postponed the reassessment. MPAC states that property assessments for the 2026 property tax year continue to be based on fully phased-in 1 January 2016 current values, with the postponement extended through the end of the 2021 to 2024 assessment cycle by a regulation filed 16 August 2023. MPAC has not stated when the next province-wide reassessment will occur. Toronto’s 2026 total residential rate is 0.767311 per cent.

Does the Committee of Adjustment usually approve variances here?

On the City’s own closed-applications dataset, filtered to the core Kingsway streets since 2017, there were 135 closed applications – 122 approved, 6 refused, 1 withdrawn and 6 without a recorded outcome. That is an approval rate of roughly 95 per cent of decided applications, and only 3 went on to a recorded tribunal decision. The filtering and arithmetic are mine; the dataset is the City’s.

Related reading

• Top 10 things no one will tell you about Islington and Etobicoke Centre
• Top 10 things no one will tell you about The Queensway and Stonegate-Queensway
• Top 10 things no one will tell you about Mimico and Humber Bay Shores
• Top 10 things no one will tell you about Alderwood, Etobicoke
• Toronto Municipal Land Transfer Tax: the bracket table from 1 April 2026
• Toronto Vacant Home Tax: the buyer can be left holding it
• Toronto West market report, July 2026

Sources

Every figure on this page traces to one of these, and each was read on 31 August 2026. Primary sources only — by-law text, Council decision, Official Plan consolidation, City open dataset, transit agency project page, conservation authority, or the agency that administers the thing being described. Where I could not verify something from a primary source, it is not on the page, or it is attributed to the secondary source it came from.

• Heritage Conservation Districts & Studies; Heritage Register Review. City of Toronto. The 27 designated districts, the absence of any Kingsway entry, the 1 January 2027 deadline under Bill 23, the approximately 4,000 listed properties and the five-year re-listing prohibition. toronto.ca
• Heritage Register open dataset. City of Toronto Open Data, Q2 2026 release. The fifteen register properties inside Kingsway South, the four Part IV designations and their by-law numbers, and the Teiaiagon-Baby Point records carrying By-law 1367-2024. open.toronto.ca
• Teiaiagon-Baby Point Heritage Conservation District Plan. City of Toronto City Planning. The Humber Valley Surveys, the Home Smith building period 1911 to 1941, and Appendix B, Home Smith and Company Building Restrictions. toronto.ca
• The Kingsway. Etobicoke Historical Society. The Home Smith land assembly, the five 1912 subdivisions, and the architectural controls described in this page as attributed rather than asserted. Secondary source, cited as such. etobicokehistorical.com
• Toronto Official Plan, June 2026 Office Consolidation, Chapters 1 to 5. City of Toronto. Chapter 4 section 4.1 Neighbourhoods policies 1, 5 and 7, including the immediate-context rule and the statement that intensification on major streets in Neighbourhoods is not encouraged. toronto.ca
• Multiplex Housing; Council item 2023.PH3.16; By-law 474-2023. City of Toronto. The May 2023 adoption, the duplex, triplex and fourplex permissions in the RD zone, the 10.0 metre height rule, the June 2025 six-unit by-laws limited to Toronto and East York District and Ward 23, and the direction to consult school boards on capacity. toronto.ca
• Zoning By-law — Zoning Area open dataset. City of Toronto Open Data, modified 20 February 2026. The RD zone strings on Kingsway lots showing 13.5 to 18.0 metre frontages, 510 to 555 square metre lot areas and the 0.45 density cap, and the CR zoning on the Bloor Street commercial strip. open.toronto.ca
• Zoning for Major Transit Station Areas. City of Toronto. The Minister’s approval of 120 station areas on 15 August 2025, the finality of that decision, the 30-storey and 8.0 FSI permissions, the 6-storey and 4-storey Neighbourhoods permissions, inclusionary zoning and the parking rule. toronto.ca
• Minister-Approved Major Transit Station Areas open dataset. City of Toronto Open Data, modified 3 February 2026, 120 features. The station name list confirming Old Mill SASP 635 and Islington SASP 627 and the absence of Royal York, and the polygon geometry from which the gap on Bloor Street West is measured. open.toronto.ca
• Easier Access Program Schedule; Old Mill Station Easier Access. Toronto Transit Commission. The 2026, 2027 and 2028 station schedule, the two elevators, the end of 2028 in-service date and the approximately four-year project duration. ttc.ca
• TTC Board approves contract for elevators at Old Mill Station. Toronto Transit Commission news release, 29 January 2025. The $25.69 million contract to Maystar General Contractors, the 57 of 70 accessible stations at that date, and the statement that once Old Mill is complete all 70 stations will be accessible. ttc.ca
• Royal York Station; Line 2 Automatic Train Control. Toronto Transit Commission. The three elevators and accessible status at Royal York, the surface route list, and the 2026 ATC contract award to Hitachi Rail Canada. ttc.ca
• Council item 2026.EY31.3 — 2915 to 2943 Bloor Street West. City of Toronto. Considered at Etobicoke York Community Council 29 April 2026 and adopted by City Council 20 and 21 May 2026, directing the City Solicitor and staff to oppose the application at the Ontario Land Tribunal. secure.toronto.ca
• Development Applications open dataset; Notice of Application. City of Toronto Open Data and the City’s statutory notice service. File 25 208823 WET 03 OZ with its 29 storeys, 423 units, 26,114 square metres and FSI 8.2; the 2016 seven-storey file 16 141156 WET 05 OZ; and the other Bloor Street West files listed on this page. open.toronto.ca
• Bloor West Village Avenue Study; Avenues Policy Review. City of Toronto. The study area running from Keele Street to the Humber River, the 10 November 2025 staff report, the 16 December 2025 adoption of the study and urban design guidelines, and Official Plan Amendment 778 with its right-of-way height table, in effect 14 March 2025 and confirmed in OLT-25-000221. toronto.ca
• Committee of Adjustment Applications — Closed Applications since 2017. City of Toronto Open Data, modified 29 August 2026. The 135 closed applications on the core Kingsway streets, the 122 approvals and 6 refusals, the street and year breakdowns, and the three tribunal decisions. open.toronto.ca
• Municipal Code Chapter 813 (Trees) and Chapter 658 (Ravine and Natural Feature Protection). City of Toronto. The 30-centimetre permit threshold and section 813-29 penalties; section 658-2A protecting any tree in a protected area regardless of size, section 658-4 exemptions and the section 658-12 penalties including $500 to $10,000 per day for continuing offences. toronto.ca
• When to Apply for a Tree or Ravine Permit; How to Apply. City of Toronto. The permit triggers in a ravine protected area including grading, fill and retaining walls, the $583 cash-in-lieu and guarantee deposit per tree, and the rule that replacement trees are protected from planting regardless of size. toronto.ca
• TRCA Planning and Permits, glossary, flood risk management and erosion risk management. Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. Ontario Regulation 41/24 and the activities requiring a permit, the warning that flood plains are not always apparent, the stable slope allowance of three times slope height, the statement that the regulation limit is not a development limit, the Regional Storm standard, the map viewer disclaimer, and the position on private erosion works. trca.ca
• Basement Flooding Protection Program Map and Subsidy Program. City of Toronto, page modified 13 May 2026. Study Area 51 Royal York Road/Kingsway with its 2023 EA completion, Study Area 49 completed 2022, the 67 study areas, the Etobicoke Centre construction zones, and the subsidy figures effective 12 November 2025 to a maximum of $6,650 per property. toronto.ca
• Sewer Outfalls open dataset. City of Toronto Open Data, modified 21 August 2026. The 1,919 outfalls citywide by type, from which the 42 outfalls in the Humber corridor beside The Kingsway are counted. open.toronto.ca
• Municipal Land Transfer Tax rates and fees; Vacant Home Tax. City of Toronto, MLTT page modified 7 April 2026. The 17 December 2025 Council amendment, the graduated bracket table effective 1 April 2026, the municipal non-resident speculation tax at 10 per cent from 1 January 2025, the administration fee, and the Vacant Home Tax rate, deeming rule, exemptions, penalties and purchaser lien. toronto.ca
• The Assessment Cycle; Property Tax Rates & Fees. Municipal Property Assessment Corporation and City of Toronto. The 1 January 2016 valuation date applying to the 2026 tax year, the regulation filed 16 August 2023, and Toronto’s 2026 residential rates totalling 0.767311 per cent. mpac.ca
• Municipal Code Chapter 547 and the short-term rental operator pages. City of Toronto. The principal residence requirement in force 1 January 2025 under By-law 503-2024, the 10-day evidence rule, the 180-night entire-unit cap, the three-bedroom partial-unit rule, the $390 registration and the offence provisions including up to $10,000 for each day an offence continues. toronto.ca
• Neighbourhood Profiles, 2021 Census, 158-neighbourhood model; Neighbourhoods open dataset. City of Toronto Open Data, Statistics Canada 2021 Census as compiled by the City. Kingsway South population 8,855, median age 48, 66.9 per cent single-detached, 58.6 per cent of dwellings built 1960 or before, median dwelling value $2,000,000, and the polygon geometry used for the boundary tests. open.toronto.ca
• School enrolment by grade, 2024-2025; TDSB Out-of-Area Admissions; Bishop Allen Academy. Ontario Ministry of Education, Toronto District School Board and Toronto Catholic District School Board. Lambton Kingsway 690, Etobicoke Collegiate Institute 1,335 and Bishop Allen Academy 1,460; policy P013 and the November 2026 out-of-area determination date; and the September 2026 temporary relocation of Bishop Allen to 2 St. Andrews Boulevard. data.ontario.ca
• Ravine & Natural Feature Protection area open dataset. City of Toronto Open Data. The 854 polygons from which the 19 overlapping the Kingsway and Humber valley are identified. Note the layer was last refreshed in July 2019 and is used directionally only. open.toronto.ca