Second-storey additions in Ajax

Less than people assume. Ajax is a young town by housing stock. Of 39,490 occupied homes in the 2021 Census, 2,765 were built in 1960 or before and 6,345 between 1961 and 1980. That's about 9,100 homes, close to a quarter. Another 8,530 date from the 1980s, and 41% went up in 2001 or later.

The town's roots explain the old core. Ajax grew around the Defence Industries Limited shell-filling plant in the Second World War, and its workers were later offered the wartime houses. The Improvement District of Ajax followed in 1950 and the Town in 1955 (Town of Ajax, history). Census counts give eras, not street names or storey counts, so we look at your house before we say anything about it.

Height in Ajax runs from the average level of the street in front of the house, not the ground at your back door, to a point halfway between eave and ridge if the roof is pitched (Section 3). On a flat roof it's the top of the wall. Measured that way, a bungalow with a new floor and a modest pitch usually comes in under 11.0 m. If yours doesn't, the fix is a height variance from the Committee of Adjustment.

The real limit is under the floor. Before drawing, we have a structural engineer check whether the footings, foundation walls and bearing walls can take the new load, and where a steel beam or new posts need to land. Then the roof comes off. We stage the work so the house is closed in fast, but plan on living elsewhere. On Greenwood we kept the old double-brick side wall safe by opening the floor in stages and rebuilding each section before starting the next.

The Pickering Village Heritage Conservation District trips people up: despite the name, it's Ajax's old village core, not part of the City of Pickering. There, a new storey changes the outside of the house and needs a heritage permit. Ajax says minor applications can clear in a few days, while bigger ones go to the Heritage Advisory Committee and Council, with a 90-day limit (Town of Ajax, heritage).

Ajax's Schedule A multiplies $14.22 by "the related floor area" and never prints the unit. A 75 m² second floor works out to $1,066.50 if that's per m², and about $11,480 if it's per sq ft (our arithmetic). The same schedule prices demolition per square metre, so m² is the likely reading. Confirm it with Building Services before you budget.

Our nearest finished second storey is West Lynde, about 8 km east in Whitby, where we took a bungalow to two storeys in about 4.5 months on site. Greenwood, roughly 32 km west in Toronto, got a top storey and a rear extension over 10 months, permit and design included.