Site Engineering in Newmarket

Often, yes. Newmarket has its own site alteration by-law, so excavating, filling or regrading beyond a small amount can need a permit separate from the building permit. We check the by-law’s thresholds against your project and prepare the grading plan and the erosion and sediment control the application asks for.

If the lot is inside the regulated area of Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority (LSRCA), yes. Ontario’s O. Reg. 41/24 counts site grading and the placing or removal of fill as development activity, so a regrade near a watercourse, a valley or a wetland in Newmarket can need an LSRCA permit with nothing being built. We check the authority’s mapping against the survey before the grades are set.

Often, yes. Under Newmarket’s Private Tree Protection By-law 2022-10, you generally need a Private Tree Permit before injuring or destroying a tree on private property that is 20 centimetres or more in diameter at breast height, measured 1.4 metres above the ground. Trees covered by the Town’s Woodlot By-law or York Region’s Forest Conservation By-law are among the exceptions. Since the by-law covers injuring a tree as well as removing it, we plot the protected trees from the survey before setting grades, and either keep cuts and fills clear of them or raise the permit with you early.

Yes. We take on site engineering 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 recent topographic survey, if you have one; what you are building, paving or regrading; and architectural or pool drawings, if another designer prepared them. Send those and we tell you what the Town of Newmarket Building Division will ask for before we quote.

A house, addition or pool that misses a setback, height or coverage limit in By-law 2010-40, or in 2019-06 for an Urban Centres lot, by a margin small enough for a minor variance. The Committee weighs four things: whether the change is minor, whether it suits the property, and whether it respects the intent of the zoning and of the official plan. The Town of Newmarket Building Division issues the permit once the variance is in place.

It puts a roof, a path and often a patio where there was lawn, and that water has to go somewhere other than the neighbour’s yard. By-law 2026-10 allows one detached unit on a qualifying lot, though never on LSRCA floodplain, so we confirm the lot is eligible, set the grades and swales around the new building, and check the earthwork against the Town’s site alteration by-law.

The dig, the spoil and the new decking all change how the yard drains, and that is earthwork Newmarket’s site alteration by-law regulates, so we check the volume against it and draw the grading plan for the application. The pool and its deck also have to sit within the yard setbacks of the lot’s zoning by-law, 2010-40 for most of the town, which we read off the same survey.

Then the zoning comes from a different source: the Town asks owners there to get it from its Planning Department rather than from By-law 2010-40, and we make that request before setting grades or a footprint. Valleys and watercourses on such a lot may also fall under LSRCA regulation, so we check the authority’s mapping at the same time.

We check with the Town first. The Lower Main Street South Heritage Conservation District is Newmarket’s one designation under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act, and a retaining wall along the street or a widened driveway there may be something the designation covers. Whatever the heritage answer, the cut and fill still needs approval under the Town’s site alteration by-law if it passes the by-law’s limits.