Landscape masonry edicate...

As I have always mentioned before... Landscape Architecture is about using materials from an existing structure to bring into the landscape and tie things together. This particular project was about just that...

The homeowner was very fun to work with from the start. When I first arrived on his project he asked me to drive up and down his street and pay attention to all the homes on his street....look at all the landscape ideas they have done....then come back and show him something different!!! (I like a challenge!)

I did exactly that and came up with the walls and pillars matching the stonework on the home. I decided to go with squares and rectangles as the paving shapes for the pathway rather than sweeping curved lines.

In the end, the client was very pleased and the look of the landscape was said to bring a bit of the old Forest Hill in Toronto look... into the Suburbs of the G.T.A. (Greater Toronto Area).

New Toronto Pool Bylaw

This past year I have had a few questions posed to me about a new Bylaw in effect for the City of Toronto in regards to pools. The questions are about pools being fenced in from all 4 sides of the yard by an enclosure between the house wall and the pool itself. Basically, in my previous article I outlined my adventure on trying to find what the bylaws are for the City of Toronto. Not a very fun adventure!

So, for this article I decided to display a couple of diagrams to help illustrate the new bylaw....


Under the old bylaws, the above diagram displays what was acceptable (bylaw compliant) as a typical pool layout for the City of Toronto and is still acceptable for most areas outside of Toronto. The diagram shows the pool location in relation to the property line and must meet certain setbacks (the minimum distance allowed for a pool to be built from the property line). In Toronto the setback is 4 feet from the property line and in other areas of the GTA the pool must be 5 feet from the property line.

There must also be a fence enclosure set in all around your backyard with self-closing/self-locking gates. The fence itself must be built at a regulated height... which for a Toronto single residential property is 1.2 meters or 4 feet high. Any door leading from the home to the enclosed pool area in the yard must have child safety locks installed as well (no longer acceptable in Toronto). Garage doors leading into the enclosed pool area must also comply with child safety locks and a self-closing device.

The new City of Toronto pool bylaw explained...


Basically, the above diagram displays what all the hype is about... as it was previously acceptable for you to have a pool enclosed on 3 sides of your yard by a fence and self closing gates with the home acting as your fourth side to the enclosure... you now have to incorporate an enclosure (fence with self-closing gate) that stands between the pool area and the back wall of your home...connected to the other fence enclosures to form a complete square. The only way to get around this bylaw is to simply not have a door that opens or allows you access from your house into your backyard within the enclosed pool area.

For that matter... windows that open into the enclosed area must also have locks that prevent the window from being opened more than 10 cm or 4 inches.

So...where does that leave you? If bricking in sliding glass doors that lead into your yard is not an option... then you must come up with a way to provide a 1.2 meter high...or 4 foot high barrier between your home and your pool! My diagram displays a simple layout to provide a solution to the bylaw. But what if you don't want the yard divided like that?

There are in some ways, ideas that can address the bylaw and still keep your entertaining space open. Playing with deck levels and elevation changes in your yard could help you to disguise a fence with a gate. But there are the unfortunate circumstances for some backyard layouts where you are simply stuck with the great wall of China going through your backyard!!!

City of Toronto pool By-laws

A great mystery is about to be revealed! So if you live within the City of Toronto boundaries and are considering putting a pool in your yard...where would you find the bylaws that regulate pool construction online?

As a landscape designer, I asked this question myself...and did an extensive Google search for such bylaws that would regulate the construction of a pool in the City of Toronto...and came up with absolutely nothing!

Now I know that the City of Toronto website posts all or most of their bylaws online in PDF format. This is done so that we can quickly look them up and pretend to be a lawyer in understanding the legal terms and language used to write these bylaws...so that we can know if we are breaking a bylaw rule...or conforming to it.

In order to figure out where the pool bylaws are hidden you have to look in the City of Toronto Fence enclosure bylaws under the Toronto Municipal Code ... yes folks...almost everything you wanted to know about putting a pool in your backyard is there under section 447-3...Swimming Pool Enclosures... and can only be found by searching with the keywords "Toronto Fence bylaws"!...and not the logical keywords... "Toronto Pool bylaws". The only thing I could not seem to find online is the pool setbacks from the property line. I guess that question is better answered by a quick phone call into the bylaw office...instead of hopelessly trying to find it online.

Anyway, the original purpose of this article was set out to talk about a new "Toronto Pool bylaw" in which you are now required to install 4 sided pool fence enclosures instead of the traditional 3 sided enclosures that incorporated the use of your house wall as the 4 th side to enclose your pool....but this will be discussed in the next article...

follow up....so I am still bugged by the fact I cannot find pool bylaws online...I decided to investigate this further by calling into the City (Access Toronto 416-338-0338) and spoke with a service rep for a few minutes. He was very helpful in terms of trying to figure things out...but he was stumped because he could not find any information on his data base. So I got redirected to another number...had to give my home address in order to talk to a zoning examiner for my area...

...but then I was told I no longer lived in the Former North York area...it is now the West District(???) ...somehow my property got shifted out of North York and slotted into Etobicoke... Anyway, I said I am making a general inquiry for Pool Bylaws in Toronto! I was then told...it is different for different districts of Toronto (???????) and I would have to call another number for my area. So I told the lady...basically I have to pretend I am putting a pool in at my home in order to find out information on pool bylaws? She said...I should not be doing that!!!

By this point I was having a good morning laugh... I told her... this is part of my job, I need to know this information because I like to be informed when potential clients call me up and ask me questions... she said...I understand that sir, but you need to give a specific address for where the pool is being built. So I said...okay, I want to put one in at my location! ...I figured I would get somewhere that way.... she gave me a new number to call for the "West District" and I got someone's voice mail box that was already full and I could not leave a message.

I just called another number for the Etobicoke/"York" district...got an automated response which then directed me to another voice mail...I could either leave a message or go in person to make inquiries! I'm still laughing here...

So........... all in all....pool setbacks remain just as elusive on the City of Toronto phone network as they do online. So I guess my best suggestion would be to find out what district you live in for the City of Toronto....and pay them a visit in person!


Let me know what you find out!