Long Branch was not laid out as a neighbourhood. It was laid out in 1884 as a summer resort of cottages on the lake, reached by steamboat from Toronto, and almost every argument here since traces back to that.
In 1883 James Eastwood sold the part south of Lake Shore Road to Toronto financiers, who laid it out as a resort called Sea Breeze Park. Thomas Wilkie renamed it in 1886 after Long Branch, New Jersey. The village incorporated in 1930 and came into Toronto in 1998.
The resort is why the lots are the shape they are
A radial railway reached the Long Branch Loop in 1895. Once you could get here year round the resort filled in, and seven more subdivisions opened between 1910 and 1920. Eight subdivisions, each with its own lot standard, is why the pattern changes block to block.
Original villa-style cottages survive along Lake Promenade and around Long Branch Park. The historic lot fabric runs 9.0 to 15.24 metres of frontage on depths of 35 to 45 metres, and about 60 percent of lots south of Lake Shore Boulevard are 12.2 metres wide or more, against 30 percent north. After the 1954 clearances many cottages were replaced by brick bungalows on lots around 50 by 150 feet, and the old subdivision lines still roughly match the boundary between detached-only and multiple-residential zoning. The lakeshore itself is overwhelmingly in private hands, sold off as villa lots, with public access only at Marie Curtis Park, Long Branch Park, Len Ford Park and the street-end parkettes.
Hazel is still the standard
On 15 and 16 October 1954 Hurricane Hazel dropped 28 centimetres of rain here in twenty-four hours. More than forty homes were lost at the mouth of Etobicoke Creek, and thirty-five people rode it out on the roof of one house held back by two trees. Afterwards 147 cottages were condemned and 164 properties expropriated. The creek mouth was re-channelled straight into the lake and Marie Curtis Park opened in 1959.
The same ground flooded in 1948, when 110 families were rescued. Hazel is not history for planning purposes: the regulatory floodplain covering the west end of Long Branch is the more severe of the Hazel storm or the hundred year storm, and across most of the conservation authority's jurisdiction Hazel governs.
The severance fight, and what it means for a wide lot
Splitting a lot means a consent under section 53 of the Planning Act, usually a 50 foot lot into two of about 25 feet, heard with minor variances at the Etobicoke York Committee of Adjustment. Long Branch keeps its own regulations, held over in Chapter 330 of the former Etobicoke Zoning Code: minimum frontage 12.0 metres, minimum lot area 371 square metres, maximum floor space index 0.35, maximum height 9.5 metres. Split a 15.24 metre lot and each half has about 7.62 metres, roughly 37 percent short on frontage. The Official Plan adds a second test, that development respect and reinforce the prevailing size and configuration of lots, prevailing meaning most frequently occurring on the same street. So one approval can shift which frontage prevails.
Council adopted the Long Branch Neighbourhood Character Guidelines on 31 January 2018. They are guidelines, not zoning, and set no new minimum frontage, but they state that the 6.0 to 8.0 metre frontages recent severances produced do not meet the intent of the Zoning By-law. Appeals then went to the Toronto Local Appeal Body, where the record ran against severance: 70 Thirty Sixth Street refused on 3 July 2019, as destabilising to a lot fabric holding a significant proportion of 50 foot lots; an approval at 9 Thirty Eighth Street overturned, the builder's appeal denied by the Divisional Court on 4 April 2020; four more refused through 2021; and 65 Fortieth Street on 19 January 2022, the first decided under the Guidelines.
Then the ground moved. Bill 23 received Royal Assent on 28 November 2022, and neighbours and residents' associations can no longer appeal a Committee decision on a consent or a minor variance. The mechanism behind that run of refusals is closed. This is a two-sided issue locally: people bought wide lots here intending to split them and build for their own families. I am not going to tell you who is right. If you are buying, do not assume either answer, and get a written planning opinion and a survey before relying on severance potential. If you are selling, do not price a lot on a severance you have not secured. A consent that has not been granted and given effect is not something a buyer's planner will pay for.
The station, the loop and the main street
Long Branch GO sits on the Lakeshore West line beside the Long Branch Loop and was one of the original 1967 GO stations. It is the real commuting argument here. The streetcar is the opposite story. Long Branch Loop is the western terminus of the Toronto streetcar network, and downtown from here is a two vehicle trip of roughly seventy minutes of scheduled running time. There is no major north to south road inside Long Branch either, so every drive to a highway crosses the rail corridor.
Lake Shore Boulevard West is the only commercial street, mostly two storey buildings with shops at grade and apartments above, covered by a business improvement area since 1987. I am not going to name shops along it, because the only published roster I can find is out of date. Two schools operate inside the neighbourhood, and catchments change, so confirm the address with the board.
What I tell buyers to check
Much of the old stock started life as a summer cottage. These were seasonal buildings converted to year round use once the streetcar arrived. Inspect for shallow or rubble foundations, a crawl space where you expected a basement, three season rooms closed in later, knob-and-tube wiring, galvanised or lead supply lines, and additions built in stages without permits. A structural inspection is not optional here.
Never assume a wide lot can be split, and never assume it cannot. A 50 foot split lands well under both the frontage and area minimums, and tribunals refused case after case from 2019 to 2022, but neighbours lost the right to appeal a Committee approval in November 2022. Order a preliminary zoning review as well as a planning opinion: the City's zoning page and the Guidelines describe different by-laws.
The west end sits on a regulated floodplain. For anything near Etobicoke Creek, Island Road or the creekside parks, run the conservation authority's regulated area search and floodplain map viewer before conditions expire. Their permit is separate from a City building permit and can constrain additions, basements, decks and pools.
Trees can stop a build before zoning does. Tree protection works independently of the by-law. Protected trees on the lot, on the street, or next door with a root zone crossing the line can reshape a footprint, and one refusal here turned partly on a 47 centimetre fir. Get an arborist on the property before you firm up.
Rail along the whole north edge, a terminal at the west end. The CN mainline and GO Lakeshore West corridor form the northern boundary and trains run through the night. Streetcar track runs down the middle of Lake Shore Boulevard, and Long Branch Loop is a terminus where vehicles lay over. Stand on the block at six in the morning and eleven at night.
Comparables are thinner than they look. Eight subdivisions of different dates and standards, and a lot fabric that differs sharply either side of Lake Shore. Some 25 foot lots in the record are approved severances nobody ever built on, two of them on Ash Crescent since 2016. Check what a comparable actually is before anyone prices off it.