Tweet: [Link](https://x.com/PlannerSean/status/2029229007867101254)  | More details on Designer's site: [Link](https://www.office-ou.com/projects/delaware-missing-middle)

Site location: [157 Delaware Avenue](https://housesigma.com/on/toronto-real-estate/157-159-delaware-ave/home/BDO1w3Wemqqy8Jg0/) |  Application Info Centre: [157-159 DELAWARE AVE](https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/planning-development/application-details/?id=5764406&pid=187981&title=157-159%20DELAWARE%20AVE)

Planner Pamela Blais initial experience with City, Oct 2025: [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/pamelablais.bsky.social/post/3m3cqgu5cw22g)

Globe & Mail story, Jan 2026: [Link](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-single-stair-exit-stairway-buildings-architecture-inge-roecker)

>The owner/developers of the Toronto apartment project, former developer Marvin Green and planner Pamela Blais, **say theirs is the first single-stairway project to be approved there in the postwar era. Ontario’s 84-year-old building code forbids this approach**; they secured special permission by convincing municipal officials that the design is safer than the prescribed minimum standard.  
...

>​Toronto building examiners initially balked at Office Ou’s solutions. “It’s all about negotiation with the city, which was very complicated and convoluted,” said Office Ou co-founder [Uros Novakovic](https://www.linkedin.com/in/uros-novakovic-45488119/?originalSubdomain=ca).

>​Frustrated by the lack of progress, Mr. Green and Ms. Blais took to social media to complain about the roadblocks. Their posts came to the attention of one of Mayor Olivia Chow’s staff. “There had to be political involvement,” Ms. Blais said. “The mayor requested that the chief building official resolve the matter.”

>“This was the first single exit stair project with an alternative solution proposal that has come to our attention,” Ms. Chow’s spokesperson, [Shirven Rezvany](https://www.linkedin.com/in/shirvenrezvany/?originalSubdomain=ca), explained. “Our goal was to help find a way to make it work and set an example that this kind of building is feasible.”

>​After months of deadlock, the mayor’s intervention worked, and the city approved an “alternative solution” in early November. While the approval document states that the design isn’t a “precedent” – anyone who wants to build a single exit stairway building still needs to develop a specific solution – Mr. Keays points out that such projects can and do lead to changes in building codes.

Pamela Blais book on urban sprawl is an insightful one: [Perverse Cities: Hidden Subsidies, Wonky Policy, and Urban Sprawl (2011)](https://www.ubcpress.ca/perverse-cities)

  
Note: Planner Sean Galbraith who presented to Committee of Adjustment today is here in comments section sharing feedback (thank you!). 

"Very happy to have variance approval for this wonderful 3 storey apartment building for my client Pamela Blais. This 'Office Ou' designed project is the first to receive approval for a single stair alternative solution." - Planner Sean Galbrait | Missing Middle, 6 units, 157-159 Delaware AVe