Toronto needs housing bad, and that's going to mean your quiet little neighbourhood might have to make some changes to its built form in a mad dash to house a surging population.

One such quiet street at the north edge of the city could soon see a massive 50-storey tower plopped down amid a block of one- and two-storey homes.

Abitibi Avenue near Yonge and Steeles looks almost indistinguishable from any suburban side street, but a newly proposed condo tower aims to totally transform the low-density block. It joins a growing collection of increasingly tall and dense proposals in the vicinity of the future Steeles station on the upcoming Yonge North Subway Extension.

Triage Development Corp's application on behalf of developer Amdev Property Group for 10-18 Abitibi Avenue seeks to tear down five single-family homes and replace them with a Hariri Pontarini Architects-designed tower rising just over 171 metres above the tiny bungalows to the east.

This extreme height (in relative terms) on such a small street would not be entirely unprecedented, as renderings highlight active plans for high-rises to the immediate west and south of the subject site.

The tower is primarily planned as residential space, accounting for over 99 per cent of the total floor area. This includes 534 condominiums in a mix of unit types ranging from studios to three-bedroom layouts.

The remaining 186 square metres, or just over 2,000 square feet of space, is proposed as ground-floor retail.

Assuming each of the 28 homes on the block holds an average of four people, the proposal would increase the population on this stretch by almost five times.

And while that number may be alarming, especially to locals, it's not necessarily a bad thing that deserves the opposition it will almost certainly generate.

Earlier in July, Toronto Regional Real Estate Board President Paul Baron noted that, despite the impact of higher borrowing costs, "the demand for ownership housing is stronger than last year."

It is only expected that demand will continue to increase as the city's population surges, while the presence of a new subway station in the next decade makes the area an obvious hub for intensification.

What should be of a bit more concern to locals is the developer's plan to include an underground parking garage with a capacity for almost 100 cars, in spite of the plan to build a subway station just a couple blocks away.

This garage's ramp would empty out directly onto Abitibi Avenue, with the potential to create bottlenecks just before the street's western terminus at Yonge.