Legal Basements in Toronto

A building permit for the unit, applied for with drawings. Toronto is a single-tier municipality, so there is no regional office in the process. The stairwell for a new entrance changes the grade beside the house, and Toronto reviews that with the building permit. We prepare and file the set and deal with the examiner’s comments.

Only where the lot is inside Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) regulation, near a watercourse, a valley or a floodplain. Digging a stairwell down to the basement changes the grade there, and the TRCA permit may be needed before Toronto issues the building permit. Inside a ravine or natural feature protection area, Toronto requires its own permit as well, so a lot there can need two. We check the TRCA mapping and the city’s ravine areas before the entrance is drawn.

Toronto permits secondary suites inside detached, semi-detached and townhouses, and allows detached additional residential units as garden suites or laneway suites in the rear yard. Multiplexes of up to four units are permitted city-wide. In the Toronto and East York District and in Ward 23 the limit rises to six units, so a house there can take more than the basement suite, and we lay the basement out with the later units in mind.

Yes. We take on legal basements 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; basement ceiling height, measured floor to joist; and photos of the basement, the mechanical room and the outside wall where an entrance could go. Send those and we tell you what Toronto Building will ask for before we quote.

It depends on the soil and the house next door. Lowering the floor below the existing footings is underpinning, which needs a permit from Toronto Building, and on a narrow lot the new footings can go below the neighbouring house’s footing. If that happens within the soil’s angle of repose, if the underpinning has more than 1200 mm of laterally unsupported height, or if the soil is clay or silt, Toronto requires an engineer to design the work and review it on site. Otherwise the city still wants an engineer’s tests at the first and last stages, which our P.Eng carries out.

It can. For house projects of two units or less, Toronto Building may accept a professional engineer’s seal as showing Building Code compliance, in whole or in part, and a house with one basement apartment is two units. The zoning is still reviewed in full, against By-law 569-2013 or the lot’s former municipal by-law. Add a garden suite or a third unit to the plan and the project falls outside that program and takes the standard review.

It can decide which side the entrance goes on. A stairwell or a larger window well means digging through roots, and under Toronto’s Private Tree By-law a private tree measuring 30 cm or more in diameter at 1.4 m up cannot be injured without a City permit, while street trees are protected whatever their size. On a narrow lot the side yard may be the only place for the entrance, so we locate the trees from the survey before choosing between a side door, a rear door and an escape window.

The district decides that, so we ask before the entrance is drawn. Toronto’s heritage conservation districts under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act include Cabbagetown, Riverdale, East Annex and the two Rosedale districts, among others, and a new stairwell changes the outside of the house. A rear entrance leaves the street face as it is, so we test that position first, then confirm with the City what the district requires before the set goes to Toronto Building.

Yes. We measure the unit as built, compare it with the Building Code, including the separation between the two units and the way out of each, and draw what has to change. The set goes to Toronto Building as a new application through the Online Services Portal, and city inspectors check the work as it is done. Ontario allows an additional unit no matter when the house was built, so a prewar house is no obstacle.