Site Engineering in Toronto

Usually not. Toronto reviews lot grading through the building permit; a separate permit applies only inside ravine and natural feature protection areas. The grading plan still goes in with the building permit application to Toronto Building, and we prepare it to that department’s lot grading criteria.

If the lot is in a TRCA Regulated Area, yes. TRCA’s rule is that filling, changing grade or building anything there needs its permit, and you must have it before Toronto issues a building permit. We check the regulated-area mapping when the survey comes in, so the same elevations go to both reviewers.

Often, yes. Under Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 813, a permit is needed to injure or remove a tree on private property with a diameter of 30 centimetres or more measured 1.4 metres above ground. City street trees of any size are also protected, and ravine and natural feature areas are covered separately under Chapter 658. The city trees it protects matter most when a driveway is widened toward the street. 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 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 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 Toronto Building will ask for before we quote.

Yes. The grading plan goes up with the rest of the permit set through the City’s Online Services Portal, and when Toronto Building’s examiner comments on elevations, swales or drainage, the engineer who set those grades revises the plan and replies. You can follow the review on the Building Permit Application & Inspection Status site in the meantime.

Yes. A suite in the rear yard adds roof and hard surface where water used to soak in, and on a narrow lot there is little ground left between the new building, the house and the lot lines to carry it away. Toronto Building’s new garden suite guide asks for a lot grading plan, as its new house guide does, so we draw the grades, swales and roof drainage on that plan.

Expect one. A pool’s excavation and deck change the grades, and on a narrow Toronto lot that happens close to the neighbours, so we set the pool and deck levels to drain away from both houses and draw them on a grading plan for Toronto Building. The layout also has to meet the zoning that governs the lot, By-law 569-2013 or a former municipal by-law, which we check before the pool’s position is fixed.

Not because of the unit count, since Toronto permits four units anywhere in the city, and six in the Toronto & East York District and Ward 23. A variance comes in when the building itself misses a standard in By-law 569-2013, such as a setback, the height or the lot coverage, and the Committee of Adjustment then has to grant it before Toronto Building can issue the permit. We draw the site plan to the by-law first and show you any shortfall before you decide whether to redesign or apply.

The Committee is where a severance is decided, but its consent is only part of it. Each new lot has to meet the frontage, area and setbacks in By-law 569-2013, or the former municipal by-law covering the property, or the application needs variances as well, and on the narrow lots of the inner suburbs frontage is the first standard we check. We prepare the site plan showing both lots against the zoning, with the new lot lines surveyed by an Ontario Land Surveyor.