New Custom Homes in Oakville

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

If the lot is inside the regulated area of Conservation Halton, 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. Beside a valley with stable slopes, the regulated area runs to the stable top of the bank plus 15 metres, which can decide where on the lot the house goes. The Conservation Halton permit comes first, then the Oakville building permit.

It depends on the district. The first check is whether your lot is inside one. Oakville has four heritage conservation districts: Old Oakville, First and Second Street, Trafalgar Road, and Downtown Oakville. For a lot inside a district, we confirm with the Town of Oakville Building Department what it asks of a new house before the massing is drawn.

Yes. We take on new custom homes across Oakville, including Old Oakville and Bronte, within an hour of 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 Oakville Building Department will ask for before we quote.

We start with the by-law, because Oakville has two: a lakefront or older lot south of Dundas Street is under Zoning By-law 2014-014, and a lot between Dundas and Highway 407 is under Zoning By-law 2009-189. That by-law’s height, coverage and setbacks, read against the survey, give the envelope the house is massed in. Where a design needs a little more, the Committee of Adjustment hears it before the permit.

Through Online Services, and then into ePlan, where the Town of Oakville Building Department’s examiners review the architectural, structural, mechanical and energy sheets with the grading plan. When several sheets draw comments in one round, we answer them all in a single resubmission through ProjectDox, so the reviewers never compare mismatched versions.

They can. Taking down the old house, digging the new basement and trenching for services can each damage roots, and Oakville’s Private Tree Protection By-law 2017-038 asks for a permit before a private tree 15 cm or more across at breast height is injured, as it does for any tree an approved site plan requires. On a lakefront or older lot being rebuilt, we plot those trees, and the neighbours’ near the lot lines, from the survey before the footprint is placed.

Yes. Under Ontario’s Building Code Act a building cannot come down without a permit any more than it can go up without one, so the demolition application goes in through the Town’s Online Services alongside the new house. The Town of Oakville Building Department then has both on file, and the old house comes down once its permit is issued.

Yes, and early, while the plan can still change. Our director is the broker of record at our sister real estate company, so he can set a new house against what has sold nearby: on a lakefront or older lot being rebuilt, the neighbours may already be new houses, while a Glen Abbey street was built out in the 1980s. That comparison can set the size of the house as much as the zoning does.