If you’re planning a pool near a mature tree in Toronto, or on a ravine lot, the tree bylaws already apply to your project. The city doesn’t treat pool construction as routine, permit-free work. Separately, City Hall is weighing a zoning change that could make some yards harder to qualify for a pool. Council sent that change back to city planning staff in February 2026.
A Pool Needs Its Own Permit Path
Toronto doesn’t consider a pool “as-of-right” construction. Along with landscape features, sheds, gazebos, and standalone garages, a pool needs its own path through the permit system before you dig.
If there’s a protected tree anywhere near the pool site, that path runs through the tree bylaw. Pools show up by name on the list of construction activities that can injure a protected tree: building one, or discharging pool water or backwash into a tree’s protected zone, both require authorization first. For how that permit works and how the protected zone gets measured, see our post on permits to injure for decks, pools, and driveways.
The Protection Zone Decides How Close You Can Dig
Every protected tree carries a Tree Protection Zone, a no-go radius calculated from trunk diameter. A tree measuring 30 to 40 cm across carries a 2.4 metre zone. A tree at 71 to 80 cm carries a 4.8 metre zone. On a typical city lot, that radius alone can reach well into the yard you were planning to excavate.
On a ravine lot, the same table doubles. A 30 to 40 cm tree’s zone jumps from 2.4 metres to 4.8 metres, or the tree’s full drip line if that’s larger. Bigger trees scale the same way straight up the table.
Ravine Lots Face Two Permits at Once
A pool on a ravine lot also triggers two separate city permits running side by side: one for any tree the pool would injure or remove, one for the grade alteration and fill the excavation involves. Both come out of the same ravine bylaw chapter, and each needs its own paperwork: a tree inventory and protection plan for the first, a grading and drainage plan for the second.
If your property also sits inside a TRCA-regulated area, TRCA permission runs alongside the city process, not instead of it. TRCA asks for a site grading and landscaping plan showing the pool location and decking, the setback from the top of slope, and sediment control, and its own guidance tells applicants to submit to the city’s Ravine and Natural Feature Protection staff at the same time for any tree work the project involves. That’s three approvals before a shovel goes in the ground. For the broader permit picture, our Toronto permit guide covers how the pieces fit together.
Neighbour Trees Widen the Review
The city doesn’t only look at trees on your own property. Under the private tree bylaw, the area of consideration extends 6 metres beyond wherever your project disturbs the site. Under the ravine bylaw, that reach doubles to 12 metres. A big tree on the other side of a fence, or two doors down on a ravine lot, can still land inside the zone the city reviews.
If a tree straddles the property line, or its roots or canopy reach onto your property from next door, Urban Forestry decides whether it is a boundary or neighbour tree. If it is, the City mails the neighbouring owner a first letter when staff assess the tree and a second letter when they approve the permit. The permit issues at least 14 days after the second letter. Once you have the permit, it has to be posted visibly from the street the day before work starts, and stay posted until the work is finished. Build that notification window into your schedule if a boundary tree is anywhere in the picture.
Separately, a set of amendments that took effect on September 1, 2026 changed how the city treats large trees and permit review generally. See our breakdown of those changes if a big tree is part of your plans.
City Hall Is Considering a Change to How Pools Count
Right now, a pool’s water surface works in your favour. Toronto’s zoning by-law counts the water surface of a pool or similar water feature as soft landscaping, the planted, permeable share of your yard that the by-law requires you to hold at a minimum percentage. For a lot with 15 metres or more of frontage, 60% of the front yard has to be landscaping, and 75% of that has to be soft. For a lot with at least 6 metres of frontage, 50% of the rear yard has to be soft landscaping. A pool’s surface area currently helps you hit those numbers.
A proposal working its way through City Hall would take that away. Under the draft zoning amendment, the water surface of a pool, hot tub, or fountain would stop counting as soft landscaping for those calculations, though an artificial pond would still count. For a yard that’s already tight on soft landscaping, losing the pool’s contribution could push the property below the required minimum, which means a minor variance application before the pool can go ahead at all.
The Proposal Went Back to Staff
This change is not in effect, and it isn’t scheduled to take effect. It’s a proposal that went through committee once and got sent back.
The idea traces to a 2023 Council direction to look at tree canopy loss from infill construction, developed through staff reports in 2024 and 2025 aimed at protecting growing space for trees. City planning staff brought a recommendation report to the Planning and Housing Committee in November 2025, and the committee adopted it with amendments on January 22, 2026, recommending Council approve the zoning changes. Committee approval isn’t Council approval. When the item reached full City Council on February 4, 2026, Council didn’t adopt it. Instead, on a motion from Councillor Gord Perks, Council referred the whole item back to city planning staff, asking them to look specifically at what the changes would mean for new pool construction, including added approval costs and ways to minimize them, before reporting back to committee. As of October 2026 the zoning by-law still counts a pool’s water surface as soft landscaping, and the proposal to remove it is with City staff after the February 4, 2026 referral.
The pool and landscaping industry pushed hard against the change before that referral. PHTCC, an industry association, wrote to the Mayor and Council arguing the exclusion would create real cost and process consequences without a clear canopy benefit, since pool construction is already governed by the tree permit system described above. Several pool and landscaping builders also filed their own letters to Council on the item. Councillor Stephen Holyday told CBC the exclusion would effectively rule out pools on many city lots, and pointed to real costs for anyone pushed into a minor variance application.
Getting Your Pool Project Right
Our team prepares pool permit arborist reports for Toronto pool projects, covering the tree inventory, protection zones, and the site plan your permit application needs. Once you give the go-ahead, the site visit happens within one business day and the report is delivered within two business days of that go-ahead. If your project touches a ravine-protected lot or a boundary tree, we’ll flag that before the visit so you know what else the application needs. Contact us with your site address and we’ll scope it from there.