Home Additions in Newmarket

The Town of Newmarket Building Division handles the zoning check, the permit and the inspections; York Region looks after regional roads and servicing. We file it on the Town’s Development Portal and follow the review there until the permit is issued.

If the lot is inside the regulated area of the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority (LSRCA), yes, and the LSRCA permit comes before the Newmarket 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. Under By-law 2026-10, an added unit is also ruled out on floodplain the LSRCA has identified, so an addition meant to hold one is checked against that mapping as well.

Yes, if it fits the zoning, and that is the first thing we check. Newmarket’s parent zoning by-law is Comprehensive Zoning By-law 2010-40, and the Town’s Urban Centres have their own Urban Centres Zoning By-law 2019-06. For properties in the Oak Ridges Moraine area, the Town asks owners to contact its Planning Department for zoning information. On a moraine lot that means the Planning Department first; elsewhere we measure the addition against whichever of the two by-laws covers the lot. A shortfall then goes to the Committee of Adjustment as a minor variance, before the Town of Newmarket Building Division issues the permit.

It depends on whether your house is inside it. Newmarket has one Heritage Conservation District under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act, the Lower Main Street South Heritage Conservation District. For a house inside the district, we ask Newmarket 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 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: 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 Newmarket Building Division will ask for before we quote.

Usually, when its trunk measures 20 cm or more at 1.4 m off the ground. The Private Tree Protection By-law 2022-10 needs a Private Tree Permit for injuring a tree like that, not only for destroying it, and excavating for a foundation close to the trunk can do exactly that. Our survey shows each tree before the addition’s outline is settled, so the new wall either keeps its distance or the tree permit is already approved when the Town of Newmarket Building Division looks at the drawings.

They can, within By-law 2026-10, which limits a lot to two additional units besides the main home. A unit built into an addition is part of the house, so it uses one of those two, and it must have a separate entrance, a fire separation and a way out. Planning those from the first sketch means the Town of Newmarket Building Division reviews a single set, not the addition now and a unit application afterwards.

It might. Newmarket zones lots under Comprehensive Zoning By-law 2010-40, apart from the Urban Centres under By-law 2019-06, and the definition of lot coverage in the one that applies decides whether a covered porch counts. We count the porch and the addition together before sizing either; if the sum is over, you either trim the porch or seek a minor variance, and that is settled before the Town of Newmarket Building Division will issue the permit.

Mainly the zoning by-law for the lot, which is Comprehensive Zoning By-law 2010-40 unless the house is in one of the Urban Centres under By-law 2019-06, and that by-law’s definition of height says where the measurement starts. We take the ground levels off your survey and draw the new roof line against the limit, and the Town of Newmarket Building Division checks the same measurement during review. Whether the existing structure can carry the extra floor is a separate check our P.Eng makes on site.

It might. Newmarket has a site alteration by-law of its own for digging, filling and regrading, and an addition can change the levels around the house. We confirm with the Town of Newmarket Building Division whether that work sits under the addition’s building permit or needs a separate approval, and our engineer draws the grading either way.