What records explain secondary residential units at a Lincoln home?

The Zoning By-law 2022-50 text the Town publishes (July 2022) permits one secondary residential unit within a single-detached, semi-detached or townhouse dwelling, or one in a structure accessory to it if the house has none, with a floor area of no more than half the main dwelling's, its own entrance and one parking space beyond those the house needs, tandem allowed. The Town's page says the text is changed from time to time and that its planning department can confirm whether a section has been amended.

Section 35.1 of the Planning Act says a zoning by-law can't prohibit, on a parcel of urban residential land, which it defines as land in a settlement area served by municipal water and sewage works, two units in a detached house, semi-detached house or rowhouse plus one in an ancillary building, or three in the house. A general permission does not make an existing basement apartment lawful; the building permit and inspections are the records that do.

• Zoning By-law: the Town's page for Zoning By-law 2022-50 and its maps
• Zoning By-law 2022-50 (July 2022): section 3.34, secondary residential units (PDF)
• Planning Act, section 35.1: the provincial limit on zoning that prohibits up to three units on a parcel of urban residential land

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