A More Precise Planning Vocabulary for Different Forms of Residential Growth
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We would never build a transportation system and call everything simply “transportation.” A bicycle, a city bus, a freight truck, a car and a train may all move people or goods, but no one mistakes them for the same thing. They need different kinds of infrastructure, different rules, and different amounts of room to do their work.
Housing is much the same. A low-rise residential area with mature trees, older housing stock, and in close proximity to transit will grow very differently than, say, a newer suburb, a greenfield area, or an urban core area with mid- and high-rise buildings. Each neighbourhood grows in its own way and places different demands on land, infrastructure and services.
Yet, according to most Provincial Planning Acts across Canada, all of the above areas are tucked under one tidy label: “residential.”
With municipalities struggling to meet housing targets and communities growing rapidly, it may be time to loosen our grip on the all-encompassing “residential” land use designation, and create categories that better reflect how communities actually grow.
How Land Use Designations Are Set in Canada
Most provinces don't tell municipalities exactly how or where to grow. Instead, they give a broad mandate: make a plan, identify areas for housing, and set policies to guide development. Then they step back and let municipalities figure out the details. It says nothing about density or housing type. For example, in Ontario, the Planning Act requires that a “neighbourhood” designation in an official plan allow “residential uses,” but it doesn’t say what kind or how much. Most provinces follow the same pattern.
There’s a reasonable argument for this hands-off approach from the province. This flexibility in land use designation matters because a one-size designation from the province, say a blanket as-of-right fourplex rule applied identically across all municipalities, ignores real differences in servicing capacity, existing housing stock, and political appetite.
But flexibility and structure aren't opposites. Municipal growth follows recognizable patterns, and expecting every planning department to work out the right designations on its own isn't realistic. Departments are already juggling competing priorities with a handful of staff and tight budgets, and identifying growth patterns and translating them into precise land use categories is its own specialized skill, one most departments were never resourced to build in-house. It's time for provinces to step in, not with heavy-handed control, but with precise residential land use designations that actually reflect how communities grow.
Two decades of studying growth patterns across Canada point to five distinct patterns that recur regardless of region. Consistent residential land use designations at the provincial level, built around these five patterns, would give municipalities a shared vocabulary: not a mandate on what to build where, but a common set of terms to build policy and forecasting on. Instead of inventing definitions from scratch, planners could adapt a proven framework to local conditions.
Every province should require these five residential designations in municipal growth planning:
Mid- and high-rise residential land
Low-rise expansion land
Grey and brownfield redevelopment land
Stable residential land
Low-rise intensification land
Mid- and High-Rise Residential Land
This form of growth tends to happen at a steady pace, shaped more by the market than by zoning. In most municipalities, zoning already permits more mid- and high-rise development than the market is absorbing. The real constraint is demand: developers build only as fast as buyers, renters, and financing allow.
Low-Rise Expansion Land
This is often called greenfield development. It's common in municipalities not constrained by a greenbelt or urban boundary, and it's usually the path of least resistance because the land is cheap and the approvals are simpler than other forms of housing. But expansion growth is a long-term fiscal drain on municipal coffers. New roads, pipes, and services all have to be built and maintained for decades, spread across a low-density pattern that generates comparatively little tax revenue per kilometre of infrastructure.
Grey and Brownfield Redevelopment Land
Greyfield redevelopment lands are areas within municipal boundaries that have been developed for some other use in the past, say a school or shopping mall. Greyfield sites that are contaminated are often called brownfield.
These sites can be redeveloped and are a great opportunity for growth in terms of the number of units they can eventually deliver, but they’re capital-intensive and slow-moving. Planning, legalities, financing, remediation, and servicing can take a decade or more before the first units are occupied. Because the timeline is long, it needs to be tracked and measured as its own distinct form of growth, not folded into general residential targets.
Stable Residential Land
Stable neighbourhoods in Canada are typically those that were built after 1980. These homes are generally quite big, well-built, and set tightly on their lots, which makes them poor candidates for teardown-and-rebuild. However, on occasion, they may be well-suited for the addition of a secondary dwelling unit or coach house (sometimes called a garden suite or laneway house).
Stable neighbourhoods can absorb some gentle growth, but they were never built to carry the bulk of the city's housing growth, and no amount of permissive zoning changes changes that.
A recent example is Toronto's legalization of garden suites citywide. Even with permissive rules in place, over the past four years, only 0.5% of new homes have been garden suites and laneway houses, according to a recent University of Toronto School of Cities study. That gap shows what stable neighbourhoods can realistically deliver.
Low-Rise Intensification Land
Some low-rise neighbourhoods could double in density over 20 years if allowed to add mid-density new construction. This holds even under a conservative redevelopment rate of 1.15% of lots per year: at that pace, enough properties turn over and rebuild at higher density that the neighbourhood's overall density doubles within two decades. These areas are already serviced and are often close to transit and shops, so adding density here helps move communities closer to becoming complete communities.
Done right, with façade zoning, this kind of intensification lets new growth enhance the low-rise character residents already value, rather than erase it.
Growth in this category is fiscally responsible for municipalities, since it uses existing infrastructure rather than requiring new roads, pipes, or services. It's also better for the climate: compact low-rise designs share floors, walls, and ceilings between units, which cuts per-unit energy costs. And because these neighbourhoods are already close to daily needs, adding density here reduces car trips.
Why These Five Land Use Designations Matter
Each of these five forms of growth has a different pace, a different cost profile, and a different payoff. They meet different housing demand and provide different forms of housing. Lumping them all under "residential" makes it impossible to plan, fund, or forecast them effectively.
Provinces don't need to micromanage every municipality's plan. But they should require every municipal plan to name these five forms of growth explicitly, and to show how much of each a community expects and needs. That's the difference between a plan that reads well and a plan that actually delivers housing.
Rosaline Hill is a principal architect, planner, and development consultant with over 25 years dedicated to designing homes and communities that work. She founded RJH Architecture + Planning, Walkable Ottawa, Ottawa Cohousing, and BuildingIN, each building on her passion for smarter, more sustainable housing solutions.
With support from her CMHC Housing Supply Challenge winnings, Rosaline launched BuildingIN, an infill consulting practice advancing a data-driven approach that unifies Canada’s fragmented housing market for low-rise, multi-unit infill. Her proven methodology has guided municipalities, large and small, through transformative change. Today, she partners with governments across the country, empowering changemakers to unlock scalable, affordable housing solutions where they are needed most.
Sources:
Allen, J. (2026, January). Backyard housing in Toronto: Mapping laneway and garden suite development, 2018–2025. School of Cities, University of Toronto. https://schoolofcities.github.io/gentle-density/toronto-backyard-housing
BuildingIN. (2026). Rate of redevelopment report. RJH Architecture and Planning. https://www.buildingin.ca/post/rate-of-redevelopment-report
City of Toronto. (2026, August 7). Housing data. Toronto Housing Data Hub. https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/toronto-housing-data-hub/housing-data/
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