New Custom Homes in Newmarket

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 Town of Newmarket Building Division issues the building permit and, at the end, the occupancy permit, and inspects the build in between. Newmarket has its own site alteration by-law, and we ask the Town of Newmarket Building Division early whether the earthworks around the new house need a permit under it.

If the lot is inside the regulated area of the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority (LSRCA), yes. Under Ontario’s Conservation Authorities Act, building a house or grading a site in hazardous lands, wetlands, river or stream valleys or shorelines at risk of flooding or erosion needs the authority’s permit, because O. Reg. 41/24 counts both as development. The authority has to publish maps of its regulated areas and review them at least once a year. We check the lot against the current map. The LSRCA permit comes first, then the Newmarket building permit.

That depends on the rules of the Lower Main Street South district. The first step is to check the lot against its boundary. Newmarket has one Heritage Conservation District under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act, the Lower Main Street South Heritage Conservation District. For a lot inside it, we confirm with the Town of Newmarket Building Division what the district asks of a new house before the design is fixed.

Yes. We take on new custom homes across Newmarket, including Historic Downtown and Glenway, 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 Town of Newmarket Building Division will ask for before we quote.

They often decide how far the house can spread. Under Newmarket’s Private Tree Protection By-law 2022-10, destroying or injuring a private tree 20 cm or more in trunk diameter at 1.4 m needs a Private Tree Permit, and the demolition, the new foundation dig and the service trench can all do that kind of harm. Trees that fall under the Town’s Woodlot By-law or York Region’s Forest Conservation By-law are excepted from the permit, so the survey notes which rule governs each tree before the site plan reaches the Town of Newmarket Building Division.

We do. Ontario’s Building Code Act lets no one demolish a building until the chief building official has issued a permit, so the demolition application goes to the Town of Newmarket Building Division through its Development Portal alongside the new house. If the old house is one of the heritage homes around Main Street, we check its heritage status with the Town before that application is made.

Start with the zoning by-law that covers it: a lot in one of the Urban Centres follows By-law 2019-06 rather than 2010-40. Then check whether it sits inside the Lower Main Street South district and whether the LSRCA has mapped any part of it as regulated land. We can check all three before your offer is firm, and the answers show how large a house the lot can take and which approval comes first.

Yes, at the zoning stage. For a property in the Oak Ridges Moraine area, the Town asks owners to get zoning information from its Planning Department. How big the new house can be and where it sits depend on that answer, so we get it before drawing anything. After that the set is filed on the Development Portal, and the Town of Newmarket Building Division reviews it and inspects the build like any other new house.

Yes. The Town takes building permit applications through the Development Portal and lets applicants track them, so you can watch your file move through review at the Town of Newmarket Building Division. We answer the examiner’s comments and resubmit until the permit is issued, and the portal shows where the file stands in the meantime.