Where Heritage Rules Meet the Rouge: Renovations in Unionville

Most buildings in the heritage district date from the later 1800s, some in wood and some in brick, and the district plan grades them: Class A for those of major importance to the district, Class B for buildings that may not be significant on their own but add to the village's look. That plan reaches even energy upgrades. On heritage buildings it prefers caulking, sealing and interior or exterior storm windows to double-glazed replacements or insulation blown into the walls, so we air-seal from the inside and save original mouldings and doors. Where the original plaster is sound, we patch it instead of stripping walls to the studs, and a joist found notched for an old pipe gets the repair an engineer specifies.

In the old village, a kitchen that has outgrown its room often grows out the back. The district plan wants an addition behind the house or on a side that is hard to see, never larger in scale than the original, with any new windows and doors kept to rear or hidden walls. The major heritage permit an addition needs is charged by the new floor area, and an addition over 100 square metres also brings a conservation plan to restore worn or missing heritage features. Inside, an engineer sizes the opening through the old back wall, licensed trades run the new circuits and plumbing, and we build the room, cabinets, tile and floors. The kitchen fit-out itself takes three to six weeks.

Houses of the 1970s and 1980s around the old village usually have small basement windows set high in the foundation, which suit a rec room but not a bedroom. A bedroom needs a window that opens to at least 0.35 square metres with no side under 380 mm, or a door to the outside, so a larger opening often has to be cut through the foundation, work for a concrete-cutting contractor, with a deeper window well dug outside. Inside, we frame the deep new sill as a wide ledge and finish its returns in drywall so it reads as part of the room. If the lower level is to be a second suite, Markham issues the building permit and Markham Fire and Emergency Services registers the finished unit.

Adding a bathroom to a house in the old village raises a question that seldom comes up outside a heritage district: where the fan duct and plumbing vent leave the building. Markham lists vents and exhaust pipes that pass through a wall or roof among its minor heritage permit items when they can be seen from the street, so we route the duct out a rear wall and the plumber keeps the vent stack out of view. In Bridle Trail, where some houses on Longwater Chase date from 1980, tub surrounds of that era were often tiled over water-resistant drywall rather than cement board. Once those are stripped to the studs, a licensed plumber replaces the valve and we build the membrane and tile.

Water has shaped Unionville from the start: in the 1930s a flash flood washed away the race of the old grist mill that the Toogood Pond dam served. Today a wet basement is as likely to come from a sewer backup, a failed sump pump or a burst pipe as from the creek. In a house that has flooded once, we rebuild so that a second event costs less: porcelain or vinyl plank underfoot instead of carpet, drywall held a little above the slab, and moisture-tolerant insulation in the lower walls. A restoration company dries the structure first, and a licensed plumber deals with any backup before the new walls go up.

Inside the district, repainting a house's exterior is a minor heritage permit item, meant for a colour that is historically accurate or suits its setting, or for the existing colour where that was never approved. The district plan gives palettes by period: pale classical colours such as cream, buff and pearl grey for houses built before 1860, and the Renwick and Downing colours, among them olive green, golden brown, straw and sand, for 1860 to 1900. It also asks that surfaces painted historically stay painted, that wood not be stripped bare and that historic brick not be painted at all. We settle colours first, send in the form, a site sketch, a short statement and paint chips, and buy paint once staff have approved it.

Markham's permit rule for decks has three triggers: attachment to the house, a height above 600 mm or an area over 10 square metres, so only a small, low platform standing free of the house goes without one. On the low land near Bruce Creek and the Rouge, what sits under the deck matters too. Raising a stone patio on imported fill is site alteration in TRCA's eyes, while a deck on posts leaves the ground at its existing level and lets floodwater pass beneath, so on those lots we usually suggest posts. Where a garden ends at the valley edge, TRCA's regulated limit is confirmed before the footings are laid out, and the stair down to the lawn is kept clear of the slope.

Many of the houses on Main Street north of Victoria Avenue were converted to commercial use decades ago, so a fit-out for a shop or restaurant here usually means working inside a former house: small rooms, narrow stairs and floors framed for living space, which an engineer checks before heavy equipment goes in. A change of use generally needs drawings and a City building permit, the landlord signs off first, and licensed trades handle electrical, plumbing and kitchen exhaust. Outside, the district plan wants sound historic storefronts restored rather than replaced, using old photographs as the guide, and new signs go through the sign permit process: externally lit wooden signs are generally accepted, while internally lit and neon signs are not. We build the partitions, ceilings, floors and finishes.