Process · 8 min read · Last updated
Two consultants can submit the same project to the same municipality and get permits three months apart. The difference is almost never the drawings — it is a set of habits around how the application is prepared, how the department is dealt with, and how the file is chased once it is in. Here are ten of them.
1. Confirm zoning before the drawings are finalized
Zoning is checked as part of permit review, and a design that is perfect against the Building Code will still be refused if it breaks a setback, exceeds lot coverage or misses a required parking space. Discovering that at review means a redesign, a resubmission and a lost month — or a minor variance, which runs on a committee calendar measured in months rather than business days.
Pull the zoning designation and the applicable standards before design development gets expensive. Some municipalities, including Toronto, offer a paid preliminary zoning review that will flag every non-compliance in writing before you commit. Our guide to Ontario zoning by-laws covers what to look for.
2. Build the submission around the municipality's own checklist
Nearly every building department publishes an application completeness checklist, and nearly every incomplete application fails against a line on it. Do not submit against your own idea of a complete package — take the department's checklist, work through it item by item, and be able to point to where each requirement is satisfied.
This matters more than it appears because of how the review clock works. In Ontario the prescribed review period only starts when the application is complete; an incomplete submission does not start a slow clock, it starts no clock at all. See our guide to permit timelines for how the statutory windows actually behave.
3. Keep a document kit per municipality
If you work the same three or four municipalities repeatedly, stop assembling from scratch. Keep a folder per municipality holding the current application forms, the completeness checklist, the standard declarations, the department's preferred drawing conventions and a note of who to call. Refresh it quarterly — forms and fee schedules change, and submitting last year's form is an avoidable rejection.
Add a “lessons” page to each kit. Every time a municipality comments on something you did not anticipate, write it down. After a handful of projects that page is worth more than any general guide — it is the local practice, which is rarely written down anywhere official.
4. Name one point of contact per authority
Projects touch several authorities: building, zoning, engineering for road occupancy, sometimes a conservation authority or a heritage desk. Assign one person on your side to each, and keep it consistent. Departments respond very differently to a familiar name asking a specific question than to a rotating cast asking “any update?”
Ask targeted questions, not open ones. “What will stop this permit from being issued?” produces a useful answer; “how do I get a permit?” produces a link to a web page. There is a whole set of these — see the five questions permit consultants ask building departments.
5. Put every verbal answer in writing the same day
Counter advice and phone guidance are genuinely useful, and genuinely fragile. Staff move, examiners change mid-file, and six months later nobody remembers who said what. Send a short email the same day restating what you were told, who told you and when. It is not legally binding on the municipality, but it gives you a dated record, and it gives staff a chance to correct a misunderstanding while it is still cheap.
6. Answer comments in one consolidated resubmission
When a reviewer issues comments, the instinct is to answer each one as it gets resolved. Resist it. Piecemeal answers force the examiner to re-open the file repeatedly and re-check work they have already looked at, and your file drifts to the bottom of the pile each time.
Instead, resolve everything, then resubmit once with a comment-response letter: each comment numbered as the department numbered it, your response, and the specific drawing and detail where the change appears. Reviewers can verify a package like that in a single pass. It is the single highest-leverage habit on this list.
7. Track the review clock yourself
Portals report status inconsistently, and “in progress” can mean anything from “submitted yesterday” to “sitting unassigned for a month.” Record your own submission date, the applicable review window for the building class, and the date you expect an answer. When the window passes with no contact, call — politely, with the application number, asking whether anything is outstanding at your end.
Roughly half the time something is outstanding at your end. That is the whole value of the call. Running this properly across a portfolio is its own discipline — we cover it in why permit tracking makes or breaks a construction schedule.
8. Book inspections against the look-ahead, not the day you're ready
Inspection slots are a scheduling resource like any other, and departments do not always have next-day availability. Book from the two-week look-ahead so the inspection lands when the work will actually be ready — and confirm what must remain uncovered for it. Footings before backfill, rough-in before insulation and drywall: cover those and the remedy is to open them back up.
Keep a copy of every passed inspection result attached to the permit record as you go. Reconstructing that history at closeout, months later, is far harder than filing it at the time.
9. Watch the expiry, not just the issuance
An issued permit is not permanent. Under Ontario's Building Code Act a chief building official may revoke a permit where work has not been seriously commenced within six months of issuance, or has been substantially suspended or discontinued for more than a year. Permits pulled early to “get ahead” on a project that then stalls for financing are exactly the ones at risk.
Put the commencement deadline and any renewal date for short-term permits — road occupancy and hoarding in particular — on the same calendar as the construction milestones, with a reminder well before the date rather than on it.
10. Close every permit, including the ones you did not pull
Sub-permits taken out by plumbing, HVAC and electrical trades are permits on your project whether or not you filed them. If a trade leaves the job with their permit still open, occupancy stalls and the problem lands on you. Ask every trade for their permit number when they mobilize, track it alongside yours, and make final inspection sign-off a condition of their last payment.
At closeout, hand the owner a single package: every permit number, every final inspection result, and every approval condition satisfied. It is a small amount of work at the end of a job and it is the thing owners remember when the next project comes around.
Cut the paperwork out of the loop
Several of these habits exist only because assembling a compliant application across different municipalities is tedious and error-prone. Permits2Go takes a plain-English description of the project and finds, fills and assembles the exact municipal forms the application needs — so the completeness checklist is satisfied on the first pass rather than the third.
That does not replace the judgement in the rest of this list. It removes the part of the work that was never judgement in the first place, and lets you spend the time on the zoning check and the comment response, where it actually changes the outcome.
Quick quiz: test what you learned
Three questions, all answered in this guide. Click an answer to check it.
1. When is a zoning non-compliance cheapest to discover?
Zoning is checked as part of permit review, so a code-perfect design that breaks a setback is refused — finding it first costs a phone call instead of a redesign.
2. A reviewer returns eight comments on your application. What is the better way to respond?
Piecemeal answers force the examiner to re-open the file repeatedly; one complete package with a response letter mapping each comment to the change is reviewed once.
3. Why confirm a verbal answer from a building department in writing the same day?
A same-day email restating what you were told gives you a dated record and a chance for staff to correct it, long before anyone has to rely on memory.
Skip the paperwork
Describe your project in plain English and Permits2Go finds, fills and assembles the exact municipal forms you need — for Toronto, Mississauga and municipalities across Ontario.
This guide is general information, not legal or professional advice. Permit requirements, by-laws and fees change and vary by municipality — always confirm the current rules with your local building department before you design or build.