Not a Subdivision. The Part Under It.
Most of the names you will find for new homes in Ajax sell houses in planned communities. We build something narrower: a custom ICF house on your own lot, or the concrete a builder needs under theirs.
Look up Ajax home builders and most of what comes back is listings of new communities and directories of the production builders behind them. With that kind of builder you choose a lot and a model, and the permits and servicing come as part of the purchase. If you searched for new home builders in Ajax Whitby or nearby, that is the business you mostly found.
We are not that kind of builder, and it is better to say so on the first screen than the last. DMT Building Group is an ICF specialist based in Barrie, Ontario, building across the Greater Toronto Area. We build two things that matter in Ajax. One is a custom home in insulated concrete form (ICF) on a lot you already own, from the footings to the roofline. The other is the work most of our calls are about: the footings, foundations and ICF walls that other builders bring us in to do, scheduled around their build calendar.
Either way, the house is going up in the Town of Ajax, and the Town asks the same questions of it. That is where this page starts.
The Town's checklist for a permit to construct a new residential building, form PLD-066, reads like a list of who has to agree before a house can start. Building Services takes the application through its Online Application Portal, does a pre-screen against its submission standards, and treats the day after the pre-screen is approved as the date of application. Behind that sit four other parties.
Two of those desks are worth noticing. The construction drawings carry a cover page or title block reviewed and approved by the control architect, a step the Town writes into its standard list for a new house. And the Region of Durham's development charge forms come in two kinds, regular and Carruthers Creek, filed when necessary for each unit. The checklist also asks for the Region's application for a sanitary sewer and water hook-up, or, where there is no municipal service, a private sewer and potable water approval from the Region's health service.
The rest of the package is what you would expect, and it is detailed:
The Town of Ajax collects development charges for itself, for the Region of Durham (including the GO Transit charge) and for the Durham school boards. As of July 1, 2026, the total for a single detached house is $129,041.
The timing changed recently, and the Town's page says so. Since November 3, 2025, for residential development that is not rental housing, the municipal development charges are paid in full on the earlier of the day an occupancy permit is issued and the day the house is first occupied. The education charge is still due at building permit issuance. For an owner building one house, that moves most of the charge from the start of the job to the end of it, which is a real change to how a construction budget is financed.
Rates are the ones in effect when the first building permit is issued, unless a site plan or zoning amendment application locked them earlier. Where a house had neither application, the Town's table says the rate is the one in effect at permit issuance.
Two TRCA watersheds run through Ajax. Duffins Creek drains to the north shore of Lake Ontario and connects communities that include Pickering and Ajax. Carruthers Creek, TRCA says, begins south of the Oak Ridges Moraine in Pickering and flows south into Ajax, where it empties into Lake Ontario, and the small watershed holds a substantial coastal marsh. It is the easternmost watershed in TRCA's area and lies entirely in Durham Region. From Taunton Road south to the lakeshore, TRCA describes it as low to medium density suburban development, and it notes that in the urban areas of Ajax some land slated for development is still farmed as an interim use.
For a house, that matters in one specific way. The Town's checklist asks for a clearance from TRCA where applicable, and TRCA's own guidance on building a new home is blunt about the order: the Conservation Authorities Act and Ontario Regulation 41/24 are applicable law, so the municipality cannot legally issue a building permit until a TRCA permit or clearance has been obtained. A lot near a valley, stream, wetland or the Lake Ontario shoreline starts with TRCA, not with the Town. Central Lake Ontario Conservation also counts Ajax among its municipal partners, with its watershed beginning at the Ajax and Pickering boundaries and running east, so check which authority covers your lot.
TRCA's submission for a regulated lot asks for existing and proposed grades in geodetic elevations, and the grade at the lowest window, door or vent of the house. Every one of those is a foundation number before it is anything else.
Ajax has one Heritage Conservation District. The Pickering Village Heritage Conservation District was designated in 2013 and takes in 58 commercial and residential properties in the village's central area, guided by the Pickering Village Heritage Conservation District Plan. The Town's heritage page says that once a district is designated, the Town takes on more responsibility for overseeing changes there, including the construction of new buildings. A district is not meant to stop growth, in the Town's words, but to manage change so that it supports the area's character.
Ajax also has 31 individually designated heritage properties, and an informal inventory of non-designated properties kept since the 1990s, which may be treated as heritage properties for planning purposes. If your lot is in the village or on that inventory, the heritage planner is the first call, before the design. Zoning is the second: Ajax's comprehensive Zoning By-law 95-2003, passed by Council on July 14, 2003, is read together with its maps, exception schedules and the section on Minister's Zoning Orders.
Whether you buy from a production builder or build custom home builders Ajax owners hire for their own lot, the foundation is the part you cannot change later. These are the questions we would ask, and our answers.
On our jobs, our own crews. We self-perform the footings, foundations, ICF walls and waterproofing, so one company answers for all of it.
Reinforced concrete inside continuous foam, on a 6-inch or 8-inch core for a typical home, for an effective R-22 to R-26.
We are certified installers on Nudura, Amvic, Element and Fox, so we build the system your designer drew.
The owner, Jerry Townsend, more than twenty years building in ICF, from the first site walk to the last pour.
If you want a finished house in a new Ajax community, a production builder is the right call, and nothing on this page argues otherwise. If you own a lot and want a custom house in insulated concrete, we build it from the footings to the roofline and coordinate the floor and roof assemblies from our side. And if you are a builder or developer putting up homes in Ajax, we take on repeat foundation and structural packages; Pebble Ridge, on our project pages, is an engineered footing and foundation package laid out at subdivision scale.
We are not an Ajax company. Our office is in Barrie, our published project pages do not name a job in Ajax, and we build across the GTA. What we can offer the town is the same thing we offer everywhere: a crew that does its own concrete, and a straight answer about what ICF does and does not need. For the cost side of that answer, read what ICF actually costs.
Not as a production builder selling lots and models. We build custom ICF homes on lots owners already have, and we do footings, foundations and ICF walls for builders and developers.
As of July 1, 2026, the Town of Ajax lists $129,041 for a single detached house: $45,279 for the Town, $76,227 for the Region of Durham including GO Transit, and $7,535 for the Board of Education.
Since November 3, 2025, Town and Region charges on non-rental residential development are paid in full on the earlier of the occupancy permit or first occupancy. Education charges are due when the building permit is issued.
If the lot is in a TRCA regulated area, yes. The Town's new-house checklist asks for TRCA clearance where applicable, and TRCA says a building permit cannot legally be issued until its permit or clearance is obtained.
The Town of Ajax says work must start within six months of the issue date on the permit card and be completed within one year of that date.
No. We are based in Barrie and build across the Greater Toronto Area.
Whether it is one custom home on your own lot or a foundation package for your next build, send us the lot and the drawings. We will walk it with you and come back with an itemized quote.
Prefer to talk? 705-333-3329 · info@dmtbuilding.ca
One short form — the property, what you're planning, and any drawings or site photos you have. We'll come back with straight answers.
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