In Georgina, the Grading Plan Comes Before the House
Every new house and every new foundation in Georgina needs a site alteration permit with an engineered grading plan behind it. We build custom homes in insulated concrete, and the foundation is where that plan becomes real.
Searching for new home builders in Georgina Ontario usually turns up two very different businesses. One sells houses in a plan of subdivision, from a model and a price list. The other builds one house, for one owner, on a lot the owner already has. We are the second kind. DMT Building Group builds custom homes in insulated concrete form (ICF), and we build footing and foundation packages for other builders. We do not sell subdivision homes, and if that is what you want, the subdivision's own builder is your call.
If you do have a lot in Georgina, or are about to buy one, this page starts with a requirement that comes before the building permit. Before the Town of Georgina issues a building permit for a new house, its Development Engineering division wants to know exactly how the ground around that house will be shaped and drained. In Georgina, that review is its own permit.
Our office is in Barrie, Ontario. Georgina is one of the Greater Toronto Area towns on the service area we publish, and our own crews do the site prep, footings, foundation and ICF walls.
Georgina regulates any change to the grade of land, including filling, dumping, extracting or moving soil, through By-law 2026-0060 (REG-1) and its Site Alteration and Entrance Permit, known as the SAEP. The Town's own list of projects that need one starts with the two that matter here: construction of a new dwelling, and construction of a new foundation. Septic installations, grading that affects drainage patterns and any new or modified entrance from the road are on the list too.
Three things about the SAEP shape how a Georgina build is planned:
Look at those deposits from a builder's side. The Town returns them when the finished grades match the approved Lot Grading Plan. The single biggest thing that sets those grades is the foundation: where it sits, how high its top is, and where the water goes when it hits the wall. A foundation poured a few inches high, or set a little off, is a grading problem in Georgina before it is anything else.
Georgina has two comprehensive zoning by-laws, and the first question for any new house is which one covers the lot. Zoning By-law 500, adopted in 1994 and last revised in October 2024, applies to the settlement areas. Zoning By-law 600, the Countryside Zoning By-law, was passed by Council on November 15, 2023 and now applies to the lands on its Schedule A; the Town reports that the appeals against it were dismissed or withdrawn, so it is in force from that date.
By-law 600 matters for anyone thinking about family on a rural lot. Together with Official Plan Amendment 148, it permits up to three dwelling units on lots zoned Agricultural Protection or Rural-Countryside. It also carries two appendices worth opening before you design anything: the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority's regulation limit, and Schedule D, the source water protection areas.
On either side of that line, the Town says a zoning review is part of every building permit application, and that other approvals may be needed before a permit is issued, including LSRCA approval, the SAEP, and approvals from provincial ministries or the Heritage Committee. Its building FAQ puts the lake plainly: if your property is along the lake or close to a water body, it is likely to be regulated by LSRCA.
Whether a Georgina lot has municipal water and sewer changes the cost and the site plan of a new house in ways a subdivision buyer never sees.
The Town's schedule also lists its own charge for a single or semi-detached house at $34,219 town-wide, $37,794 in Keswick and $36,889 in Sutton, not including area-specific rates, with $8,934 for the school boards. Check the current schedule and your address with the Building Division before you budget.
A lot without sewer needs a septic system, and Georgina's Building Division issues the permits for installing or repairing one; the designers and installers are licensed through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. The septic installation also needs its own SAEP. If the system will sit within 100 metres of Lake Simcoe, or of a river, stream or water body in the Lake Simcoe watershed, the Town's Maintenance Inspection Program applies to it for as long as you own the house. And the Town's advice on leaching beds, no structures over them, no paving, no regrading that lets water pond on them, means the bed and the house have to be placed on the grading plan together.
Georgina's building FAQ answers a question many owners do not think to ask until late. Tarion provides warranty coverage for most new homes built in Ontario by registered builders. But the Town also states that owners who act as their own general contractor, hiring each of the trades themselves, and who intend to live in the home, will not be covered under the Ontario New Home Warranties Plan Act.
That matters when you are deciding how to build. Some owners hire one builder for the whole house. Others hire a concrete and ICF contractor like us for the structure and run the remaining trades themselves. Both are workable, and they carry different warranty positions. Ask whoever you hire, including us, exactly how warranty works for the arrangement you are choosing, and get the answer in writing before you sign.
What we can tell you plainly is what we build. Our New Builds work runs from the site walk and an itemized quote through excavation and site prep coordination, footings formed to the site's real conditions, the full-height ICF foundation and the above-grade ICF walls, with floor and roof assemblies coordinated with our trades. One crew is accountable for the concrete scope, and the owner, Jerry Townsend, deals with you from the first site walk to the last pour.
The Town's own requirements, with our part marked.
Confirm By-law 500 or 600, the zone, and whether the lot sits inside the LSRCA regulation limit or a source water protection area.
Your engineer, technologist or surveyor prepares the Lot Grading Plan, with the septic bed and any new entrance on it.
Zoning review, site plan and construction drawings. Construction should start within six months, or the permit may be revoked unless extended.
Footings, ICF foundation and walls, set to the elevations on the approved grading plan.
Most of the calls our owner takes come from builders who already know ICF. Builders and developers bring us in for repeat foundation packages, scheduled around their build calendar, and take over a level, square, backfill-ready foundation. Our partners page names builders we work alongside, among them Ballantyne Builds and Pine Glen Homes.
On a Georgina lot, the hand-off point is a useful one: the foundation is where the SAEP's grading plan gets its elevations, and a builder taking over a foundation built to those elevations is taking over a deposit that is on track to come back. Our Lakeside ICF Build story shows the kind of stepped foundation that work produces on a sloped lot near water, and our post on pouring concrete in winter covers building through the cold months.
We do not sell subdivision homes. We build custom ICF homes on individual lots, and we build footing and foundation packages for builders.
Yes. The Town lists construction of a new dwelling, and of a new foundation, among the projects that need a Site Alteration and Entrance Permit, with drawings prepared by a Professional Engineer, Civil Engineering Technologist or Ontario Land Surveyor.
Zoning By-law 500 covers the settlement areas. Zoning By-law 600, passed November 15, 2023, covers the countryside lands shown on its Schedule A, and permits up to three dwelling units on Agricultural Protection and Rural-Countryside lots.
York Region's charge is. For a single detached house, Georgina's July 2026 schedule shows $47,644 on private well and septic against $84,718 with municipal servicing. Town and school board charges are added.
The Town's FAQ says owners who act as their own general contractor and intend to live in the home are not covered under the Ontario New Home Warranties Plan Act.
No. Our office is in Barrie, and Georgina is one of the Greater Toronto Area towns on our published service area.
Send us the lot, the grading plan if you have one, and any drawings. We will walk the site and come back with an itemized quote for the ICF work.
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.
Start my free quoteOr talk to us now — 705-333-3329
Monday–Friday, 7 a.m.–5 p.m. · Closed weekends
