Custom Home Builder Oro-Medonte

Ask any custom home builder Oro-Medonte owners are considering how the Township handles a new house, and the honest answer is: twice. Oro-Medonte will not accept a building permit application until the house has an approved zoning certificate, and that certificate is issued on the elevations, floor plans and site plan. The design has to be settled before the permit process really begins, and the certificate only lasts six months once it is issued.

We are A&R Design Build, based at 1942 Commerce Park Drive in Innisfil. Oro-Medonte and Innisfil are both in Simcoe County, the region our business has been building in since 1973, and our own work page lists two custom homes we built in Oro-Medonte in 2018. Visiting your lot, and having you visit our model home, are both ordinary parts of a build here.

The Township describes the zoning certificate as a review done before a full building permit submission, and makes its approval a prerequisite for applying. It is filed on Cloudpermit with a site plan, elevations of the front, back and sides, and floor plans, as unsecured PDFs. The fee is $100, a revision to an approved certificate is $50, and a $15 911 fee applies where a new civic address is needed. Approved drawings are stamped as pre-approved for zoning; the Township is clear that this is not a permit to construct.

What makes this stage matter is what Planning does with it. The Township says staff will flag, at this point, the fees that will be collected at the building permit, including development charges and water or sewer connections, and any other approvals the project needs:

That list arrives early, which is useful, and it arrives against a clock. An approved certificate is valid for six months. Conservation authority review, engineered lot grading, a minor variance or a survey all take time of their own, and the building permit cannot be filed until each of them is in hand.

With the certificate approved and the outside approvals collected, the building permit goes in on Cloudpermit with full drawings, the engineered lot grading details, the approved certificate and every certificate and approval from outside authorities. The Township's guide lists what the drawings include: a site plan, cross sections, elevations, floor plans, and heat loss calculations with ventilation specifications.

The guide also names two approvals that must be in before the permit is issued. Engineering and Environmental Services comment on water and sewer connections where they apply, and a new or replacement entrance needs approval from whoever owns the road, which in Oro-Medonte may be the County of Simcoe, the Ministry of Transportation or the Township.

Which conservation authority reviews the lot depends on where it sits. The Township's certificate guidance names two, the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority and the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority, and Planning tells you at gate one whether either applies. Development charges are set by Township By-law 2024-097, adjusted on January 1, 2026; the Township asks owners to confirm the figure with its Finance Department before starting.

Oro-Medonte is the kind of place where our base is an advantage rather than a caveat. The Carlyle, our model home and design centre in Innisfil, is open to walk in during office hours, Monday to Friday 9:30 to 4:30 and Saturday 10 to 4. You can stand in The Carlyle, the Panoramics plan The Carlyle MKIII in Oro-Medonte takes its name from, then sit down with the team and choose flooring, tile, counters and cabinetry in the same building.

We have been a Tarion Registered Builder since 1983 and hold HCRA licence #B46716, both of which you can check. We are also a member of the Midland, Penetanguishene & District Builders' Association. And the people you meet at the first conversation, from design and approvals to site supervision, are the people who carry the job through to possession.