Space crunch: London eyes lowering minimum headroom in homes to six feet

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Watch your head London, the city and the province aren’t looking to raise the roof.

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City hall is looking to update its property standards bylaw to shave 10 centimetres (roughly four inches) off the minimum headroom height in a home, or the distance between the floor and the ceiling, to 1.85 metres, or just more than six feet.

Even if people might have to duck their head in their own home, the reduced height aligns with changes to the Ontario building code set to take effect in the new year, and the national building code, a report by city staff says.

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“It will also encourage the construction of more dwelling units, increase the housing supply, and reduce the number of appeals to the property standards committee for dwelling units that could not achieve the minimum 1.95 metre headroom,” says the report that will be discussed Monday at a meeting of city council’s community and protective services committee.

City staff acknowledge the change likely won’t have much of an impact on most new builds, but it likely will allow more additional residential units such as basement conversions where space is limited.

The move would give developers and property owners greater flexibility to use space that already exists, the report says. Jared Zaifman, chief executive of the London Home Builders’ Association, agrees.

“Where this could potentially have a bigger impact is renovations to existing buildings basements where sometimes those height requirements, even those couple inches may be off, and sometimes that can create quite a substantial challenge,” he said. “Making a livable space in the basement where maybe previously that couldn’t have been accomplished could make quite a big difference.”

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It is hard to quantify the impact such a change will have on the housing market, Zaifman said, but “every tool in the tool belt helps.”

On the new-build side, perhaps lower ceiling units in lower floors could mean higher ceilings in the units above, he said, but that will depend on how the market shakes out.

Committee chair David Ferreira shares the same outlook on the potential impact of the proposed change, saying that it will bring on more housing where it might not have been considered before, and potentially ease demand.

“Everyone who is looking for new housing, (is) looking at it within all the demographics,” the downtown councillor said. “You will see less pressure as units come out, just on the collective of the demand.”

City staff’s report also points to potential staff time savings from the change as they look to increasingly address property standards.

The change is one of several topics of discussion from a new tenant and landlord forum that advises city hall on property standards enforcement, with other topics including the upcoming renoviction bylaw and regulating maximum temperatures.

jmoulton@postmedia.com

@JackAtLFPress

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