Home Additions in Aurora

The Town of Aurora Building Division handles the zoning check, the permit and the inspections; York Region looks after regional roads and servicing. The application goes in through the CityView Portal, which also shows its status and takes our inspection requests during the build.

If the lot is inside the regulated area of the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority (LSRCA), yes, and the LSRCA permit comes before the Aurora building permit. The authority must publish maps of its regulated areas and review them at least once a year, so we check the current map against your survey.

Yes, if it fits the zoning, and that is the first thing we check. Aurora’s comprehensive zoning by-law is By-law 6000-17, which Council approved on June 27, 2017, completing the first comprehensive review of the zoning by-law since 1979. We read your zone’s setbacks, height and coverage from it, along with any site-specific exception on your lot. An addition that misses one of them goes to the Committee of Adjustment for a minor variance before the permit is filed.

It depends on whether your house is inside it. Aurora has one Heritage Conservation District designated under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act: the Northeast Old Aurora Heritage Conservation District. For a house inside the district, we ask Aurora what it requires of an addition and design to that; outside it, the usual zoning and permit rules apply.

Yes. We take on home additions across Aurora, including Aurora Heights and Regency Acres, about half an hour from our Richmond Hill office. The first consultation is free, by phone or on site.

Three things to start: property address and a survey, if you have one; what you want to add and where; and photos of the side of the house and the yard where it would go. Send those and we tell you what the Town of Aurora Building Division will ask for before we quote.

It can, because new footings cut into the roots of any tree nearby, and Bylaw 5850-16 regulates injuring a tree as well as cutting it down. A heritage tree, or any tree on a lot in the Northeast Old Aurora district, needs a permit first, while on other lots up to two larger trees a year can go without one. We put the surveyed trees on the site plan before the footprint is drawn.

Yes. Registration By-law 6660-24 treats a unit attached to the house as an Integrated Unit, so an addition can hold one, registered with the Town as well as permitted. With a unit in the addition and another in the basement, the lot has its three units and no room left for a garden suite. We design the entrance, fire separation and exit into the addition from the start, so the Town of Aurora Building Division reviews one complete set.

It may. Your zone in Zoning By-law 6000-17 sets the lot coverage, and we read how the by-law counts a covered porch before either one is sized. If the two together go over, the choices are a smaller porch, a smaller addition or a minor variance from the Committee of Adjustment, and the Town of Aurora Building Division holds the permit until that is decided.

Often, yes. Houses west of Yonge went up long before Council adopted Zoning By-law 6000-17 in 2017, and an older house that sits closer to a lot line than the zone now allows can usually stay as it is. The new part is held to the current zone, though, or needs a minor variance before the Town of Aurora Building Division will issue the permit, so we measure the existing setbacks on the survey and keep the addition inside the ones 6000-17 sets.