The Missing Middle Podcast Why You Can’t Find a Rental for Your Family (It’s Not Just the Price)
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Mar 13, 2026 They dig into why family-sized rental apartments are nearly impossible to build in Canadian cities. They examine how building codes, zoning and old fire rules shape apartment layouts and reduce options. They compare European apartment norms with North American regulations. They explore how layered regulations push families out of cities and what policy change would need to look like.
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Cara's Rental Hunt Sparked The Episode
- Cara Stern shares her personal rental search while renovating: a family of four needing at least two bedrooms and eventually three.
- Her experience finding a reasonably priced three-bedroom felt bleak and prompted the episode's investigation.
Family Sized Apartments Are Nearly Absent In Canada
- Only about 6% of Canadian family-sized homes (3+ bedrooms) are in apartment units, with 85% in single detached, semi or duplex homes.
- Mike Moffatt uses 2021 census data to show three-bedroom apartments are extremely rare across Canada, pushing families toward townhouses or houses.
Code Shapes Apartment Layouts Into Ungraded Units
- North American codes force apartment layouts with two stair cores and long interior corridors, which make three-bedroom units inefficient and oddly shaped.
- Mike Moffatt explains that point-access low-rise blocks common in Europe are illegal here under fire-safety rules, producing bowling-alley one- and two-bed units.