Decks & Porches in Toronto

Not on most lots. Toronto looks at the grades around a deck as part of the building permit, so they go on the drawings we file with Toronto Building. The exception is a lot inside a ravine and natural feature protection area, where Chapter 658 of the Toronto Municipal Code needs a separate permit to change the grade, and Urban Forestry takes those applications.

Where the lot is in a TRCA Regulated Area, yes. TRCA asks for its own permit before anything is built there, a deck included, and that permit has to be in hand before Toronto Building issues the building permit. We run the address through TRCA’s Regulated Area Search when the survey comes in.

Yes. We take on decks & porches across Toronto, including North York and Scarborough, 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; photos of the yard and the wall the structure would attach to; and rough size, and whether you want it covered. Send those and we tell you what Toronto Building will ask for before we quote.

Yes. Each footing is a hole dug among the roots, and Toronto’s Private Tree By-law requires a permit to injure any private tree 30 cm across or wider at 1.4 m above ground, while City street trees are protected at any size, which matters for a front porch near the street. We place the footings from the survey to keep clear of those trees, or use a longer beam so fewer footings land near a trunk, before the drawings go to Toronto Building.

It can, because the porch is part of the house’s street face. Toronto’s Part V heritage conservation districts include Cabbagetown, Harbord Village, Riverdale and Parkdale Main Street, among others, and each carries its own requirements. For a house inside one, we confirm those requirements with the City before we draw the porch’s roof, columns and railings for Toronto Building.

For most lots it is Zoning By-law 569-2013, but some Toronto properties are still governed by the by-law of a former municipality, so the first step is finding out which one covers yours. We look the address up, place the deck against that by-law’s setbacks, and only then size the footings and framing for Toronto Building.

Yes. The footing sizes and beam spans on the set Toronto Building approves are the ones our crew builds to, because the same team does both. We build decks across the city, Etobicoke and East York included, and the inspector finds a deck that matches its drawings.

The permit holder calls for them at the stages the Building Code sets, and when we are building your deck, we make those calls. Toronto Building’s inspectors check the work against the permit, and the permit’s status and inspections can be followed on the City’s Building Permit Application & Inspection Status site. The permit stays open until the last required inspection is done and it is closed, which we see through.

Yes, if it narrows the path, so we draw around it. Toronto requires a firefighting access path to a garden suite from the street the house faces, at least 1.0 m wide with 2.1 m of headroom, and because that rule sits outside Zoning By-law 569-2013, the Committee of Adjustment cannot vary it. A deck, stair or canopy in the side yard is drawn to leave that path clear all the way to the suite’s door.