Drawings start in November • Ground breaks in May
Most people call a designer in March hoping to be using the place by summer. By then the calendar has usually decided otherwise — and starting construction this summer is a very different deadline from finishing in time to enjoy it. Here is the actual arithmetic for the permit side, so you can decide on purpose.
A permit set for a new build or a full addition is not a drawing — it is floor plans, elevations, sections, foundation and structural design, electrical, plumbing and HVAC layouts, and a site plan, all of which a building department will read line by line.
6–10 weeks. Concepts, then the full permit set. In our experience a typical new build runs 55 to 75 hours of drafting and code work.
2–3 weeks. The part most schedules forget. You will want changes, and it is far cheaper to make them here than after submission.
6–12 weeks. The one stage neither of us controls. See the note below on why that number is larger than the one in the regulations.
Total: 14 to 25 weeks — three and a half to six months before anyone breaks ground.
Work the dates backwards and the answer is uncomfortable but simple.
| Drawings begin | mid‑November |
| Permit application submitted | late January |
| Permit in hand | March – April |
| Ground breaks | May |
Start drawings in March instead and you are realistically framing in August and closing in through the fall. That is a perfectly good plan — it is just a different one, and worth choosing on purpose rather than by default.
Building departments are widely reported to be busiest between May and September, when every builder in cottage country is submitting at once, and that matches what we see. Applications filed between November and February land in a shorter queue. That costs you nothing — it is simply how the review calendar works, and it is the easiest few weeks you will ever save on a build.
We take projects in the order they are signed. The spring schedule fills through the late fall, and once it is full the next opening is a summer start. Booking early is not about pressure — it is about which month your foundation goes in.
We do not charge a rush premium and we do not move anyone down the list because a larger project came along. Whatever is signed is in the order it was signed. That is the whole reason the schedule means anything — a booking you can be bumped out of is not a booking.
If we cannot meet your date, we will tell you that before you sign rather than after.
The Ontario Building Code, made under the Building Code Act, sets a statutory review period — ten business days for a house — but that clock only starts once the municipality deems your application complete. In practice, deficiency notices, requests for additional information and resubmissions mean six to twelve weeks from first submission to permit in hand is typical for a residential project in Ontario, this area included. A complete, well‑prepared application is the main thing that keeps you at the short end of that range.
For a May ground‑break on a new home or a full addition, mid‑November to late January. For a June or July start, you have until roughly February or March. Smaller projects — a deck, a bunkie, a garage — carry shorter drawing times and can start later, though the municipal review still applies.
Usually, yes — not because anything is expedited, but because volume is lower. The same application competing with the May-to-September rush waits behind more files. We cannot promise a municipal timeline, because it is not ours to promise; we can tell you which months historically move fastest.
Not by pushing someone else down the list, which we will not do. What we can do is get you into the queue now so the clock is running while you finalize details, and make sure the application goes in complete the first time — which saves more weeks than any rush fee ever would.
Two design concepts, 3D renderings, a site plan, all floor plans, elevations, sections and construction details, foundation and Part 9 structural design, electrical and plumbing layouts, HVAC design on conditioned new builds, and a site visit where one is required. Engineering requiring a P.Eng seal is excluded and arranged separately, which is standard for BCIN work in Ontario. See full services →
Parry Sound, Seguin, McKellar, McDougall, Carling, The Archipelago, Rosseau, Whitestone, Magnetawan and the District of Muskoka — Bracebridge, Huntsville, Gravenhurst, Port Carling and Mactier — plus Simcoe North and the County of Haliburton. From Parry Sound to Haliburton, French River to Orillia.
Twenty minutes on the phone is usually enough to tell you whether your date is realistic.
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