What records explain additional residential units at an Aurora home?

By-law 6660-24, enacted on 10 December 2024, allows at most three units on a parcel of residential land, counting the principal dwelling: the main home with one or two units inside it and no detached unit, or with no more than one unit inside and no more than one detached ancillary unit. A principal dwelling is a detached house, semi-detached house or rowhouse, and each additional unit needs a path at least 1.2 metres wide from its entrance to a street, driveway or parking area. The Town's Zoning By-law 6000-17 doesn't permit second suites in an Environmental Protection (EP) zone.

The by-law, which replaced the earlier registration By-law 5429-12, requires every additional unit to be registered with the Town, each one separately, for the fee in the Fees and Charges By-law. The Town's page says a change of use permit or building permit is needed, that two-unit houses existing on or before 16 November 1995 are inspected by Central York Fire Services, and it publishes a registry of second and third suites. A general permission does not make an existing basement apartment lawful; registration, the building permit and inspections are the records that do.

• Secondary Dwelling Units: the Town's page on permits, registration and the registry of second and third suites
• Registration By-law 6660-24: the registration by-law and its limit of three units (PDF)
• Zoning By-law 6000-17, Section 4: the general provisions, including second suites and home occupations (PDF)

Extra units allowed is in the free check as a summary of the Town's rule, from our hand-kept table of city rules, and the full report reads the lot's zone where the Town's zoning map is open data we can use; where it isn't, the report's line says where the Town publishes it. Neither is confirmation that a particular unit holds a permit or may be occupied.

Free check: pick “Extra units allowed” See the sample report