building permits

Securing a building permit in Lake of Bays, Ont. is about to go digital. This week, the township’s building and bylaw services announced that in November it will be soft launching a cloud-based permit application system called Cloudpermit.

“Cloudpermit allows each user an individual portal for application submissions and status updates while giving the building and bylaw service staff the flexibility to perform site inspections, upload photographs, and review projects remotely using the mobile tool,” said Lake of Bays building and bylaw director Stephen Watson in a statement.

Over the phone, Watson explained that currently, when the department receives an application, an administrative assistant must manually input all of the application’s information into the township’s database. With Cloudpermit, the applicant will enter the information directly into the database, saving staff time.

“After I do my inspections in the morning, I probably spend an hour doing my reports and emailing them to the individuals,” Watson said. “This way, it’s more instant.”

Staff will upload information and photos from inspections to the database, which the applicant can see in their online portal. The applicant will then be automatically emailed once their application is approved or denied. Applicants will have access to their portal 24/7.

Contractors will also have access to the system. With Cloudpermit, Watson said contractors will no longer have to drive into the township office to drop off plans. They can upload them to the portal where inspectors will be able to see them.

An additional bonus for contractors is that once they’re registered in the system, they can use it in any other Ontario municipality that supports Cloudpermit. “If you’re a builder in Windsor, and you want to do a project in Lake of Bays, then it’s the exact same system,” Watson said.

Over 250 municipalities around the world currently support Cloudpermit, including Huntsville and Gravenhurst.

A push from the province motivated Lake of Bays’ online transition. “[The provincial government] really wants to do this because it’s more efficient,” Watson said. “They really wanted everybody to go paperless. It’s better for the environment and has less of a carbon footprint.”

The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) vetted several cloud-based permit softwares and determined that Cloudpermit was the best choice for Ontario municipalities. The association also gave municipalities that signed up in the first year a break on the software’s fee.

The one downside to the new software is that it will raise Lake of Bays’ permit application fees. The current minimum application fee is $135. Watson said he estimates that the fee will be bumped to $175 or $200. “Cloudpermit is a little more costly than our existing system,” he said. “We haven’t increased permit fees in about six years, so that’s going to increase to help offset the cost.”

Lake of Bays plans to fully launch Cloudpermit in early 2023, encouraging all applicants to use the online system. The township is also looking to introduce the software for its planning applications process.

Watson does expect a learning curve with the new software. The department will have resources for applicants who aren’t computer literate. In the early days, he expects the town will install a computer kiosk in the office where staff can help walk applicants through the process.

“But the long goal is that all the initial information will be submitted into the computer system by the applicant,” Watson said.

Haliburton County is introducing a new bylaw to maintain healthy shorelines in the area. The county council passed the bylaw, known as the shoreline preservation bylaw, during a meeting on the morning of August 24.

The bylaw creates a 20-metre horizontal buffer zone along the shorelines of all lakes, rivers, and wetlands in Haliburton County. Under the bylaw, property owners will be required to obtain a site alteration permit from the county if they want to complete any major landscaping or building projects within that buffer zone. This includes altering the topography of the shoreline by more than a metre in height, rebuilding any structures over a metre tall (such as a retaining wall), or removing more than 25 per cent of native vegetation and trees from the shoreline.

Director of planning Steve Stone did clarify during the meeting that minor landscaping activities, such as creating a flower bed, removing less than a metre of topsoil, rebuilding a retaining wall shorter than a metre in height, and constructing a driveway or path less than five metres in width through the buffer zone, won’t require a permit.

Stone also explained that if a property owner wanted to build a structure that infringed on the buffer zone, such as an addition to the cottage or a deck, they would have to apply for a building permit. If the building permit were approved, it would override the shoreline preservation bylaw.

The goal of the bylaw is to act as a preventative measure; preserving the quality of water within the community. While all stakeholders agree that lake health is a priority, this bylaw has been batted around since 2017, receiving its share of community backlash.

During a July 29, 2021, virtual open house organized by Hutchinson Environmental Sciences Ltd. and J.L. Richards & Associates Ltd.—consultants hired by Haliburton County to conduct an independent review of the bylaw document—a number of citizens voiced concerns.

“Some lakefront property owners feel threatened by this bylaw,” said Bill Missen, a director with the Maple, Beech, and Cameron Lakes Area Property Owners’ Association, during the open house. “Owners are feeling they’re totally losing control of their property.”

Missen added that the expansion of the shoreline buffer zone, which was previously three metres, limits what an owner can do on their property. He also questioned how the county planned to police the bylaw, especially when it has nearly 1,000 bodies of water.

Dave Love, a cottager on Haliburton Lake, questioned the need for new legislation. “From what I have learned, the main objective here is to achieve shorelines classified as 75 per cent naturalized or regenerated, and by doing so that will help maintain high water quality, prevent algae blooms, and prevent the risk of eroding shorelines and flooding,” Love said. “Proposing this bylaw…suggests to me that Haliburton’s lakes and shorelines are in such a state of deterioration as to require urgent government attention to save them from serious harm. I have searched for evidence of [this], but have been unable to find any.”

Love cited a 2019 lake health report from the Coalition of Haliburton Property Owners’ Associations that stated 60 of Haliburton’s largest lakes had nearly achieved 75 per cent naturalized shorelines already.

The consultants and county staff took this feedback into consideration when drafting the most recent version of the bylaw. Yet, council members still had questions during the August 24 council meeting. Coun. Cecil Ryall pointed out that the differentiation between projects that required a permit and projects that didn’t require a permit remained unclear in the current bylaw draft.

In response, Stone suggested that if a property owner is concerned about violating the bylaw, they should call the planning department before they start digging. Stone also said that the department plans to create a website devoted to the shoreline preservation bylaw, which will include more concrete examples of what does and doesn’t require a permit, photo examples of healthy shorelines, the types of materials you should be using for projects in that buffer zone, and education material on appropriate types of trees and vegetation you can plant along your shoreline.

The bylaw is scheduled to take effect on April 1, 2023. Any projects started before that date won’t require a permit. After April 1, the fee for a site alteration permit will cost $100, and it will be up to county staff to approve the application. Stone said that to avoid tying up contractors and hindering work, staff will aim to approve site alteration permits within two weeks of being submitted.

To police the bylaw, Haliburton County plans to hire three new compliance monitoring and enforcement officers devoted to the area’s shorelines. The county estimates that it will cost around $200,000 a year to sustain the bylaw.

Minor infractions of the bylaw will cost culprits $930. A major infraction, however, could result in a court appearance with fines ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 depending on the amount of damage to the shoreline. Plus, the property owner will likely have to pay to replant the trees and vegetation taken down.

“The permit system,” Stone said, “is just an element of the greater thing that the council wants to achieve, which is healthy shorelines.”