Great question! We get this one often, as it is critical to know just how the timeline to build a laneway house in Calgary will affect your goals. As Calgary’s go-to backyard suite builder, we know the ins and outs of garage suites and are more than happy to share our intimate knowledge with you!

Garage Suite Timelines: Start to Finish

In general, the entire timeline from start to finish, which includes design, permitting, and construction, can take anywhere from 8 to 16 months, depending on several factors such as the size of the suite, the time of year, and any challenges that arise during the permitting and design process. For example:

8-month timeline: In the best-case scenario, your design could take 2-4 weeks, your development permit ~3 months, and the building permit another month. With construction for the smallest suite, such as a carriage house at grade, taking approximately 3 months, you could be done in approximately 8 months.

16-month timeline: In a lengthy scenario, if your garage suite needs to be redesigned, is appealed by neighbours, or experiences supply chain disruptions, then you could face months of delays throughout the process.

You could technically complete a garage suite in just six months if you used a pre-approved plan and the permitting process with the municipality went smoothly, with no delays. However, in our experience, this isn’t a realistic timeline – especially with every project being unique in its own respects.

Today, at Garage Suites, we are seeing about two months for design, three to five months for permits, and four to six months for construction, for a start-to-finish timeline of just under one year.

Garage Suite Design Timeline & Challenges

In general, the iterative design phase of a garage suite takes about one to two months. This includes . While some clients want a standard plan with a few customizations, others may want a fully customized design. You should also be aware of a design queue, where there could be a one-to-four-week delay or more before our assigned designer/architect begins working on your file.

Potential Design Delays: could include scheduling or holidays, resulting in delayed timelines for completion of the design.

Backyard Suite Permitting Timeline & Challenges

Permits for garage suites include two stages: a development permit (DP) and a building permit (BP). In general, DPs take about 2.5 to 3 months. Also, BPs take about two to three weeks. However, we’re only talking about the review time required by the municipality. For your designer/architect to prepare the DP/BP drawings, including acquiring third-party suppliers for engineering/joists/trusses/beams/roof/floors etc. can take extra time to obtain and submit as part of your permit applications.

Potential Permit Delays: could include requirements for redesign in the DP phase, if the municipality comes back and says the design needs to be reduced in size, for example. Also, if neighbours appeal your project, it could delay the timeline by a few months in order to go through the appeals process.

Backyard Suite Construction Timeline & Challenges

It takes anywhere from three to six months to build a backyard suite, depending on many factors such as size, complexity, weather, site challenges, time of year, etc. For example, if your suite construction starts in late spring or summer, it will likely sail through and be completed within months. If your suite begins construction in October, there will likely be delays due to cold weather and holidays, which could extend the timeline by a month or two.

Potential Construction Delays: Your construction timeline could be delayed due to weather, holidays, changes to the design and/or specifications after permits are approved, third-party utility connection timelines such as Enmax or ATCO, supply chain disruptions such as pandemics, or other occurrences of the sort. While construction delays aren’t too common, they do happen, so we encourage anyone building a garage suite to be prepared for some kind of timeline delay at some point.

Garage Suite Delays: Summary

Every garage suite project we build is unique and comes with its own challenges. While most projects are designed, permitted, and built without issues or delay, some projects do experience changes to the overall timeline due to any number of the situations mentioned above.

To recap, below are some of the challenges you could face during your next backyard suite project, along with the potential delay to the in-house schedule. Please note that most of these are not common, but are good to be aware of:

  • Redesign required by municipality: 1 month+
  • Development appealed by neighbours: 1-3 months
  • ENMAX underground power service connections or secondary meters: 1-4 months
  • ATCO natural gas connections or secondary meters: 1-2 months
  • Changes to suite floorplan/specifications after permit approval: 2-4 weeks
  • Changes to suite floorplan/specifications after construction commences: 1-2 months
  • Supply chain disruptions: 1-3 months+

*please note, the scenarios above are based on past experience and are unique to each project.

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