Shoreline restoration on Lake Simcoe's east shore

The Lake Simcoe Protection Plan allows significant alteration of the shore only to stabilize, protect or restore it, and it points to natural treatments that keep the shoreline's contour wherever practical. In practice the approval goes to sloped stone and planting. Taking out an old failing wall and re-sloping the bank is part of that work.

The Plan's vegetation protection zone is 100 metres from the shore outside settlement areas and 30 metres in built-up shoreline areas, and the Province encourages owners of existing cottages and homes to re-naturalize up to 30 metres where practical. We design the planting with that in mind.

Yes. LSRCA says Lake Simcoe usually moves 0.4 to 0.5 metres a year, highest from April to June and lowest in late fall and winter, with Parks Canada managing it through the Trent-Severn. We set the toe of the stone for the low water and the planting for the high.

On the Kawartha lakes, almost always two. Parks Canada permits all work on the bed and waters of the Trent-Severn lakes, including shoreline stabilization, and the conservation authority permits work in its regulated area along the shore. We prepare and file both.

Kawartha Conservation's published guidance steers away from hardened shorelines, meaning retaining walls, sheet piles and armour stone at the water's edge. What it recommends is river rock in mixed sizes on a 3:1 slope along the natural contour, native plants and a no-mow buffer. We design to that, and put armour stone where it earns its place: steps, seating walls and terraces up the bank.

On lakes that hold walleye and bass, which is most of the Kawarthas, Fisheries and Oceans Canada's timing window keeps in-water work off-limits from March 15 to July 15 while fish spawn. Parks Canada permits are valid for one year, so we file in fall or winter and schedule the build for the open window.

Kawartha Conservation publishes its timelines: a streamlined permit is checked for completeness in 10 days and issued within 14 more, a standard minor permit in 14 plus 21 days. Parks Canada asks for applications several months before the start date. That is why fall is the time to start.

Yes. Removing a failed timber, concrete or stone wall is shoreline work too, so it goes through the same permits, and the bank is re-sloped and planted where the wall stood.

By the length of frontage, the slope, how machines and stone get to the water, and what the permits require. You get a written price after the site visit, with the permit work priced in the same quote.