A property sitting inside a regulated floodplain, wetland, shoreline or unstable slope needs a conservation authority permit before work starts — and that permit is a separate approval from, and in addition to, the municipal building permit, running on its own clock with its own regulation.
Key takeaways
Conservation authorities exist to manage natural hazard risk, and the permit requirement follows from that mandate rather than from a general land-use test. “Conservation Authorities regulate development in areas that affect or are affected by natural hazards — primarily floodplains, wetlands, shorelines, and steep or unstable slopes,” and “each Conservation Authority has its own regulated area, and the boundaries are mapped,” per how the regulated-area system works. If any part of a property falls inside that mapped area, a permit application goes to the relevant conservation authority before building, grading, filling, or placing structures.
The specifics of what’s regulated now come from one province-wide rulebook rather than a patchwork of local ones. On April 1, 2024, Ontario Regulation 41/24, Prohibited Activities, Exemptions and Permits, replaced the 36 individual regulations that previously governed each authority separately. Under that regulation, regulated areas include watercourses (including flood plains and the meander belt), hazardous lands, wetlands and land within 30 metres of them, river or stream valleys, and Great Lakes–St. Lawrence River shoreline or inland lake areas subject to flooding, erosion or beach hazards. Regulated activities include constructing, reconstructing or placing any building or structure; changing a building’s use in a way that alters its potential use; site grading and material placement or removal; and any interference with the existing channel of a watercourse.
This permit sits alongside the municipal building permit, not underneath it. Conservation authority permits “are separate from, and in addition to, municipal building permits; you typically need both,” and the authority can impose conditions on how, where and when construction happens — “for example, setbacks from the edge of the regulated area or limits on impervious surface coverage,” per the relationship between the two approvals. Working without a permit in a regulated area can lead to “stop-work orders, fines, and orders to restore the site,” which makes sequencing — getting the conservation authority decision before, or alongside, the building permit application — a scheduling decision, not just a compliance one.
Once an application is filed, the authority runs on a defined statutory clock. “The conservation authority will check and confirm if your application is complete within 21 days,” and on a complete application, “if you have made a complete application and don’t get a decision on your permit within 90 days, you can appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal,” per the province’s own timeline for permits under the Conservation Authorities Act. That same 90-day appeal right applies if the authority denies the permit outright or attaches conditions the applicant disagrees with.
A distinct, later mechanism exists for a narrower set of cases. Under Ontario Regulation 474/24, the Minister can review a conservation authority’s permit decision, or issue an order directing the authority not to issue a permit, but only for projects supporting defined provincial interests such as “housing, community services, infrastructure, jobs.” An applicant can ask for that review within 15 days of getting the authority’s decision; the Minister then has 30 days to decide whether to undertake the review at all, and 90 days to reach a final decision once a review is underway, with the applicant able to appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal if that 90-day window passes without a decision. A Minister’s own decision on a review, notably, “cannot be appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal.”
That regulation number matters because it is easy to conflate with O. Reg. 41/24: 41/24 is the substantive permit regime — what’s regulated and what a permit application must clear — while 474/24 is the narrower, later Minister’s-review layer that only applies once a decision already exists and only for a subset of projects. Most applications never touch the second regulation at all.
A worked example
A builder wants to add a rear addition on a lot backing onto a ravine, with part of the addition’s footprint inside the conservation authority’s mapped regulated area for a river valley. The builder files with the local authority and, separately, applies for the municipal building permit — the two applications run in parallel, not one inside the other. The authority confirms the conservation-authority application is complete on day 18 (inside the 21-day window), and issues a decision on day 74: approved, with a condition limiting impervious surface coverage on the addition’s footprint and setting a construction-season restriction to protect the slope. Because the decision landed inside the 90-day window, there is no OLT appeal right on timing; the builder either accepts the condition, negotiates it, or appeals the condition itself to the OLT within the same 90-day right.
Had the addition instead been tied to a proposed affordable-housing intensification the municipality had flagged as a provincial-interest project, and had the authority refused the permit, the applicant could separately have asked the Minister to review that refusal under O. Reg. 474/24 — a request that has to go in within 15 days of the refusal, triggering the Minister’s own 30-and-90-day clock rather than reopening the authority’s process.
Yes, if any part of the property sits in the authority’s mapped regulated area. The two permits are “separate from, and in addition to” each other — per how the two approvals relate — and holding one does not substitute for the other.
Ontario Regulation 41/24, in force since April 1, 2024, which replaced the 36 separate regulations that used to apply to individual conservation authorities.
The authority confirms completeness within 21 days, and on a complete application must decide within 90 days or the applicant can appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal — per the province’s stated timelines.
No. It is a separate, later mechanism under Ontario Regulation 474/24, available only for projects tied to a defined provincial interest, on its own 15-day request window and 30/90-day decision clock — and the Minister’s own decision cannot itself be appealed to the OLT.
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