Legal Basements in Burlington

A building permit for the unit, applied for with drawings at Burlington’s own building department rather than Halton Region. The stairwell for a new entrance changes the grade beside the house, and Burlington can ask for a site alteration permit for regrading or a retaining wall on a house lot, so we check the stairwell against that by-law. We prepare and file the set and deal with the examiner’s comments.

Only where the lot is inside Conservation Halton regulation, near a watercourse, a valley or a floodplain. Digging a stairwell down to the basement changes the grade there, and the Conservation Halton permit may be needed before Burlington issues the building permit. We check the regulation mapping before the entrance is drawn.

Burlington’s Residential Zoning By-law permits up to three additional residential units on a parcel of urban residential land in residential zones where a detached house, semi-detached house, street townhouse or rear lane townhouse is permitted. Up to two of those units can be detached units, and a parcel can have only one accessory building containing detached units. A basement apartment counts as one of those units, and it still needs a building permit of its own.

Yes. We take on legal basements across Burlington, including Aldershot and Downtown Burlington, within an hour of 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 City of Burlington Building Department will ask for before we quote.

For a house in one of the city’s residential zones, it is the Residential Zoning By-law, By-law 09-2026, in force since March 2026, and the unit rules we draw to are in its section 5.14. A lot outside those zones is still under Zoning By-law 2020, and a property in the Niagara Escarpment Commission’s area gets its zoning from the NEC, so we look the address up before anything is drawn.

We find out what the district allows before choosing a side of the house. By-law 08-2026 designated it under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act in March 2026, and a stairwell cut beside the house changes how it looks from outside, so a rear entrance is usually our first option and we confirm with the City what the district asks of it. The fire separation, exits and heating inside the unit then go to the City of Burlington Building Department as usual.

Burlington takes building permit applications by electronic submission only, so we email the unit’s drawings and forms to buildingpermits@burlington.ca. There is no online status page for a permit: the City gives status by phone, and its myfiles tool covers only Pre-Building Approval, which runs separately. We call for updates and answer each round of the examiner’s comments on the separation, exits or headroom until the City of Burlington Building Department issues the permit.

Possibly. Under O. Reg. 299/19, each additional unit needs a parking space for its occupant, and a tandem space qualifies, but that falls away where the zoning by-law requires no space for the main unit or says the added unit is to have none. The parking provisions we read are those of By-law 09-2026, or Zoning By-law 2020 for a lot outside the residential zones, and the space we show on your site plan is one the City of Burlington Building Department can check against them.

It can change the fire separation. Under the 2024 Building Code’s renovation rules, a house that has stood for at least five years can take a 30-minute fire separation around the unit. Burlington’s urban area has been growing south of Dundas Street since the 1950s, so many houses there are well past that age, but a house finished within the last five years does not get that allowance, and we confirm the year before drawing the separation for the City of Burlington Building Department.

Yes. Before you commit, we check whether the lot sits in a residential zone under By-law 09-2026 and whether it is inside the Burlington Avenue-Ontario Street heritage district, measure the basement’s headroom, and walk the side yards for an entrance route that misses any protected tree. Because our director is broker of record at our sister real estate company, you also get his read on how a legal unit could change what the house is worth to you.