The Etobicoke Historical Society lists twenty historic communities in the old borough. Princess Gardens is not one of them, and it should not be. There was never a mill here, or a crossroads, or an inn.
This is a post-war subdivision, and its origins are thinly documented. I could not find, in any source I would stand behind, the developer who laid it out or the year it was registered. If someone gives you a confident founding story here, ask where they got it.
What can be dated is the institutional build-out, because schools get built when the lots fill. Rosethorn Junior School opened in 1952, St George's Junior School in 1956, Richview Collegiate Institute in 1958 and Martingrove Collegiate Institute in 1966. That points to an early to mid 1950s build with later waves into the sixties.
The most useful history fact here is a piece of road engineering. The Kingsway continues north of Dundas as a street, but the land either side of that line developed in radically different ways, because a highway-style interchange at Dundas and Royal York cut the northern part off from the south. What went up instead is textbook post-war planning: very low density, curved streets feeding cul-de-sacs, quieter inside than the arterials around it suggest.
Two halves, split at Kipling
Princess Gardens is an umbrella name, and locals say the halves more often than the whole. East of Kipling Avenue is Princess Anne Manor. West of Kipling is Princess Margaret Gardens.
The City draws a different box. Princess-Rosethorn is City of Toronto neighbourhood number 10, a statistical area built from census tracts rather than an MLS boundary, and it reaches further south than the local name does. In its southeast corner sits Thorncrest Village, 208 homes on half-acre to one-acre lots, which anchors the top of the local lot-size range.
One correction, because listings get it wrong. Princess Gardens does not touch the Humber. Its eastern edge is Islington Avenue, and the Humber valley is well over a kilometre further east, past Humber Valley Village. The watercourse that borders this area is Mimico Creek, below Rathburn Road.
The rebuild is the market
The City's Princess-Rosethorn profile records roughly four thousand dwellings, close to nine in ten detached or semi-detached. Turnover is slow, and the gap between an untouched 1950s house and a full rebuild on the same block is wide. I will not quote typical frontages or the mix of bungalows, sidesplits and two-storeys, because I could not source either.
The rule set I can be precise about, and it has moved. Multiplexes of up to four units have been permitted across Toronto's low-rise neighbourhoods since May 2023. Six-unit permissions came later but apply to Toronto and East York District and Ward 23, not Etobicoke. And the Major Streets by-laws, 608-2024 and 609-2024, came into force on 11 September 2025, allowing small apartment buildings and townhouses along major streets in Neighbourhoods.
That lands directly here. Martin Grove, Kipling and Islington are four-lane arterials with detached houses on both sides, and subdivisions back onto Eglinton. On one of those lots, what may be built has changed, and so has who is bidding against you.
Nobody here walks to the subway
Islington station on Line 2 opened on 11 May 1968, on the north side of Bloor Street West at Islington Avenue. From the southern edge of Princess Gardens that is roughly 1.9 kilometres, and from the middle of the neighbourhood closer to three. The trip to the train is a bus or a drive and park. The two connections I can confirm run to Kipling station are 46 Martin Grove and 111 East Mall.
Highway 427 is a few kilometres west and the 401 about three kilometres north of Eglinton. This is a two-car neighbourhood. If you commute downtown by transit daily, ride the whole trip on a Tuesday morning before you write an offer.
A gifted stream and two immersion programs
Catchments are set by the boards, reviewed periodically, and they change. Confirm the catchment for the address with the board before you make an offer conditional on a school.
- St George's Junior School, 70 Princess Anne Crescent, kindergarten to grade five, opened 1956. It is a TDSB public school, unrelated to the private college of a similar name or to the golf club.
- Rosethorn Junior School, 2 Remington Drive, tells the arc in three dates: opened 1952, closed 1984 on declining enrolment, reopened September 1996 as French immersion.
- Princess Margaret Junior School, 65 Tromley Drive, and John G. Althouse Middle School, 130 Lloyd Manor Road.
- Richview Collegiate Institute, 1738 Islington Avenue, opened 1958, English and French immersion. Martingrove Collegiate Institute, 50 Winterton Drive, opened 1966, is one of two TDSB secondary schools designated for the gifted program in Etobicoke.
- Catholic options are St. Gregory, 126 Rathburn Road, and Michael Power/St. Joseph, 105 Eringate Drive.
What I tell buyers to check
A neighbour's new build is not proof that yours will be approved. Pull the zoning for the exact address. By-law 569-2013 is city-wide, but some Etobicoke properties are still under the former municipal by-law, with different setbacks, coverage and height. Get the permitted floor area in writing, and assume a Committee of Adjustment application if the design exceeds what is allowed as of right. Since 28 November 2022 only the applicant and specified public bodies may appeal, so a neighbour's variance is generally not yours to fight.
The trees will decide your build envelope. A permit is required for any activity that could injure or remove a private tree 30 centimetres or more in diameter, measured 1.4 metres up from the base, and street trees of any size are protected. On seventy-year-old streets, assume most mature specimens qualify, and that a trunk crossing a property line is a boundary tree needing the neighbour's consent.
Ravine and golf course adjacency is a permit question, not just a view. The Ravine and Natural Feature Protection by-law covers ravines, forests, public parks and, in its own words, golf courses, restricting tree removal, regrading and fill. Lots near Mimico Creek and lots backing onto a fairway can both be caught. A regulated lot also needs a TRCA permit under Ontario Regulation 41/24, on its own timeline: additions, garages, decks, pools and landscaping are all on that list.
Deep basements are being re-regulated right now. The City's answer to what it calls iceberg homes, houses with multi-storey basements extending below and beyond the footprint above, is to change how landscaping and setbacks are defined, with Council asking for further work as recently as February 2026.
A 1950s house being gutted is a designated substance problem. Asbestos was used widely before 1990 in siding, plaster, tiles, roofing and pipe insulation, and vermiculite attic insulation may contain it. Order the survey before demolition, not after. Treat the rest as standard post-war due diligence, not as facts about this street: panel amperage, aluminum branch wiring, galvanised piping, a buried oil tank, and a camera scope of the drain.
Comparables are thin and the internal spread is wide. Princess-Rosethorn holds roughly four thousand dwellings, close to nine in ten detached or semi-detached, and turns over slowly. Split that across two sub-pockets, put Thorncrest Village's half-acre lots at one end and unrenovated originals at the other, and clean matches are rare. Valuation leans on the lot, the condition and the street, not on any average.