New Custom Homes in Markham

A building permit with architectural, structural, mechanical and energy-compliance drawings and a grading and servicing plan, plus any minor variance or conservation permit the lot triggers. The City of Markham Building Standards Department issues the building permit and, at the end, the occupancy permit, and inspects the build in between. Markham’s Site Alteration By-law 2011-232 covers larger sites; detached infill and additions go through the city’s Residential Infill Grading and Servicing (RIGS) review instead. A new detached house on an existing lot is infill. Its grading and servicing drawings are prepared for that review alongside the permit set.

If the lot is in a TRCA Regulated Area, yes, and we check TRCA’s own mapping when the survey comes in. Building anything in a TRCA Regulated Area takes a TRCA permit, and Markham will not issue the building permit until it is in hand. TRCA asks for a pre-submission consultation, which we hold before the footprint is fixed. TRCA issues its permits in the owner’s name: the permit is yours, even though we prepare what it reviews. We confirm the issuing body when we apply, because TRCA is due to merge with the Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority on February 1, 2027 or later.

It depends on the district. The first check is whether your lot is inside one. Markham has four Heritage Conservation Districts protected under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act: Thornhill, Markham Village, Buttonville and Unionville. For a lot inside a district, we confirm with the City of Markham Building Standards Department what it asks of a new house before the massing is drawn.

Yes. We take on new custom homes across Markham, including Unionville and Thornhill, about half an hour from our Richmond Hill office. The first consultation is free, by phone or on site.

Three things to start: lot address and a survey, if you have one; your sketch, brief or a plan from another designer; and whether the lot is serviced or needs a well and septic. Send those and we tell you what the City of Markham Building Standards Department will ask for before we quote.

For most lots, Comprehensive Zoning By-law 2024-19, which the Ontario Land Tribunal approved in September 2024 for the whole city apart from land still under site-specific appeals. Those lots, and any others it does not cover, are measured against the by-law that still applies to them, so we check your address on the City’s interactive zoning map before the house is massed. The Building Standards Department then reviews the set against the same by-law.

Online through ePLAN, the only route the Building Standards Department accepts now that it has stopped taking paper. A new house goes up as one set of architectural, structural, mechanical and energy sheets with the grading plan, and when the examiners mark up several of them, we answer all the comments together in one resubmission.

Yes, where Section 4.9.9 of By-law 2024-19 allows additional units: on a lot with a detached, semi-detached or townhouse dwelling, outside a GWY1 zone and TRCA hazard lands. Building the unit in from the start puts the separate entrance, fire separation, headroom and services into the first permit set instead of a later renovation.

Yes. Ontario’s Building Code Act requires a permit to demolish a building as well as to build one, and in Markham both are applied for through ePLAN with the Building Standards Department. We prepare the demolition application alongside the drawings for the new house.

Yes. Our team includes a real estate broker, so we can talk through value while the design is still a sketch. Where the lot is matters: a village lot in Unionville or Markham Village sits among older houses, and a lot in a planned community like Cornell among newer ones, so the size and layout that make sense differ.