Legal Basements in Aurora

A building permit for the unit, applied for with drawings at Aurora’s own building department rather than York Region. Aurora also has a site alteration by-law, and we check it whenever the stairwell for a new entrance changes the grade beside the house. We prepare and file the set and deal with the examiner’s comments.

Only where the lot is inside Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority (LSRCA) regulation, near a watercourse, a valley or a floodplain. Digging a stairwell down to the basement changes the grade there, and the LSRCA permit may be needed before Aurora issues the building permit. We check the regulation mapping before the entrance is drawn.

Under Aurora’s Registration By-law 6660-24 for Additional Residential Units, a parcel of residential land with a detached house, semi-detached house or rowhouse may have up to three units, including the house itself. That can be the house with one or two Integrated Units, located within or attached to the house, and no Ancillary Unit, or the house with no more than one Integrated Unit and no more than one Ancillary Unit. An Ancillary Unit is a detached unit in the rear or interior side yard, designed to be portable, also called a garden suite, laneway house or tiny home. Every ARU must be registered with the Town. For a basement unit in Aurora that means two steps: a building permit, and registering the unit, as the by-law requires.

Yes. We take on legal basements 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; basement ceiling height, measured floor to joist; and photos of the basement, the mechanical room and the outside wall where an entrance could go. Send those and we tell you what the Town of Aurora Building Division will ask for before we quote.

It could. Digging a stairwell cuts roots, and Bylaw 5850-16 treats that damage as injuring the tree. A heritage tree, or any tree on a lot inside the Northeast Old Aurora district, needs a permit before it is injured, so on those lots we put the entrance on a side clear of it where the plan allows. Elsewhere we count the work against the bylaw’s allowance of two larger trees a year.

Possibly, but we ask the Town before drawing it. Northeast Old Aurora is Aurora’s one Part V heritage conservation district, and a new door or a bigger basement window changes how the house looks from outside, so the designation may have a say. The unit itself still counts as an Integrated Unit under By-law 6660-24 and is registered like any other in town.

It can. Your lot’s zone in Zoning By-law 6000-17 sets the side and rear yards, and a sunken stairwell or a raised landing has to fit the rules for the yard it sits in. Many postwar houses west of Yonge went up long before those yards were set, so the space beside the house may be tighter than the zone expects, and we check it on your survey before the Town of Aurora Building Division sees the plan.

In CityView. The Town of Aurora Building Division shows the application’s status there from filing to issue, and each inspection the permit lists is requested through the same portal. Passing the last one closes the permit, and registering the unit under By-law 6660-24 is the other half of making it legal in Aurora, so we keep track of both for you.

One space, under Ontario’s O. Reg. 299/19, and a tandem spot behind yours counts, unless the zoning by-law asks for none. In Aurora we read the parking rules for your zone in By-law 6000-17 before the entrance and walkway are placed, because a walkway along the driveway can take the width a second car needs. The Town of Aurora Building Division checks zoning, parking included, before it issues the unit’s permit.