Whitby Refunds the Below-Grade Entrance Fee. That Is Our Job, By Name.

Second units and basement work in Whitby

Under the Town of Whitby's Additional Dwelling Unit Incentive Program, eligible owners get reimbursed for the ADU building permit fee, the ADU registration inspection fee, the curb cut fee, and the below grade entrance fee. Read that last one again. Whitby charges a specific fee to put a below-grade entrance on your house, and under this program the Town gives it back. There is no other municipality in the GTA where our flagship service is named in the incentive list by title.

The catch is the calendar. Your ADU building permit application has to be deemed complete on or before December 31, 2026, the signed Incentive Agreement has to be back at the Town by March 31, 2027, and the unit has to be registered with By-law Services by that same date. Building permit applications don't get deemed complete overnight, and a stairwell you start in November is a stairwell you're pouring in the frost. If you've been circling this for a couple of years, this is the year to stop circling.

HMH Construction Inc. has been building separate entrances, walkouts and legal basement suites across the GTA for over 25 years. The entrance itself is usually a three-day job on site — dig, form and pour the well, set the landing and stairs, cut the foundation, hang the door, get the drain tied in properly so you're not bailing out a stairwell every spring. We're fully insured, WSIB covered, and we do the permit work in-house, which in Whitby means we handle the Planning Inquiry to confirm your lot actually allows the unit, the building permit through the Town's E-Portal, the ESA inspection by a licensed electrical contractor, the Fire Services review, and the registration with By-law Services at the end. You get one contractor, not a phone list.

What separates Whitby from the rest of Durham is how sharply the town splits by age. Central Whitby — Downtown, Blue Grass Meadows, Lynde Creek, the older half of Pringle Creek — is largely 1950s through 1970s stock: bungalows, sidesplits and a lot of backsplits. Roughly 30% of Whitby's housing went up after 2000, and almost all of that is the north and the lakefront: Williamsburg, Rolling Acres, Taunton North, Whitby Shores, Port Whitby, and the new subdivisions ringing Brooklin. Those two halves of town are two completely different jobs, and the honest answer to "can I do this?" depends almost entirely on which half you're in.

Call 905-749-4608 and we'll come measure it. Free, and we'll tell you straight if your basement doesn't have the height.

Whitby requirements

The backsplit advantage. Whitby's 1960s and 70s stock includes a lot of backsplits and sidesplits, and for a separate entrance that's good news. On a backsplit the lower level is already sitting partway above grade, so the stairwell is a shorter dig, less shoring, less concrete, and often a cheaper job than the same entrance on a full-depth bungalow basement three streets over. Homeowners assume a split-level is harder. Usually it's easier.

Ceiling height is the real gate in central Whitby. A 1960s Whitby bungalow basement is frequently in the 7'0" to 7'6" range under the joists, and by the time you allow for subfloor, finished flooring, drywall, and the ducts and beams you have to get around, some of them don't make it. The Ontario Building Code has a Part 11 route for second units in existing houses that works to a lower ceiling height than new construction, but it is not a blank cheque and it applies over the required floor area and the exit route, not one lucky spot in the middle of the rec room. We measure floor-to-joist and floor-to-duct before we quote, and we'll tell you if the answer is no. Homes built from the 1990s onward — Williamsburg, Rolling Acres, Taunton North, Whitby Shores, the Brooklin subdivisions — are usually 8' or better and rarely have a height problem at all.

Registration is not optional. Whitby's Additional Dwelling Unit Registration By-law (8156-25) means the unit has to be registered with By-law Services before it can legally be rented. Registration confirms the unit meets the Ontario Building Code and that the permits were closed out properly. Standard registration is $268. If the Town finds out about an unregistered unit through a complaint instead, it's $534. Transferring a registration is $107. We build to be registered, not to be discovered.

Whitby is CLOCA, not TRCA. This trips up contractors who work west of Pickering. Whitby sits in Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority territory, and CLOCA regulates work near Lynde Creek, Pringle Creek, Corbett Creek and the Lake Ontario shoreline under Ontario Regulation 41/24. If your lot backs onto a valley or you're near the water in Port Whitby or Whitby Shores, excavating for a walkout or a stairwell may need a CLOCA permit on top of the building permit. CLOCA also updated the Lynde Creek floodplain mapping in 2025, so a property that was outside the regulated line under the older 2008 mapping isn't automatically outside it now. We check the mapping before we price the dig, not after.

Two heritage districts. Whitby has two Heritage Conservation Districts designated under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act: Werden's Plan Neighbourhood in downtown Whitby, and Brooklin, designated in 2008. Inside either one, exterior work needs a Heritage Permit before the building permit work proceeds, and that changes the timeline. A stairwell on a street elevation in Werden's Plan is a different conversation than the same stairwell in Rolling Acres. It's usually still doable — it just needs to be designed with the district guidelines in front of you from day one.

Detached suites and garden suites. Whitby publishes pre-reviewed detached ADU designs, developed jointly with Pickering, that already meet the Ontario Building Code — using one shortens the permit path. Development charges don't apply to ADUs created inside an existing home, and education development charges on detached ADUs are on the incentive program's reimbursement list. If you have a deep lot in Blue Grass Meadows or a detached garage worth converting, a detached unit may beat a basement suite on both cost and rent.

North of the urban boundary. Ashburn, Myrtle Station and rural Whitby are typically on a private well and septic system. Out there the septic capacity, not the basement, decides what's possible — an added kitchen and bathroom means a real look at the bed before anyone talks about framing.

Whatever half of Whitby you're in, we'll come out, measure, and give you a number and an honest yes or no. 905-749-4608.