A brief history of early apartment buildings in Toronto Toronto
, 1900-1920 that the earliest apartment buildings in Toronto were"large-scale luxury blocks" rather than middle-class efficiency apartments.
By 1918, City of Toronto Directories listed at least 290 apartment buildings within the City of Toronto.Toronto Building Typology Study: The Pre-War Apartment Building - Church-Wellesley Village By 1912, purpose-built apartment buildings in Toronto were the subject of significant controversy due to their alleged facilitation of immorality ; privacy and sanitation related concerns; the emergence of landlord legislation; perceived risks to property values in the surrounding area; a loss of neighbourhood greenspace with the larger building footprints occupying most of the lot; and societal bias towards renters versus owners.
The Chief Medical Officer of Toronto - Dr. Charles Hastings - also became involved in the debate with a public health focus on the tenement-like conditions in some Toronto apartment buildings. A collapse in the property market in 1913/1914 and the advent of World War I resulted in a shift of public focus away from the construction of new apartment buildings in Toronto.
Notably, during this period, the construction of new apartment buildings in many areas required individual bylaws to be passed allowing an exemption for each site.