Gujarati & Indian REALTOR® in Unionville

What buying in Unionville is actually like

Buying in Unionville starts with establishing which Unionville you are buying in. The name covers a nineteenth-century village core along Main Street, a belt of subdivisions built between the 1970s and the 1990s to the west and north of it, and the newest high-rise and stacked-townhouse blocks at Markham Centre — and only the first of those sits inside the Unionville Heritage Conservation District, designated under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act. A listing that says Unionville tells you nothing about which of the three it is, and the difference decides who has a say in what you do to the outside of the building.

Inside the district boundary, exterior alterations, new construction and demolition all require a heritage permit from the City of Markham, and the test applied is not taste but the district’s own conservation plan. Markham sorts the applications into two streams. Minor work — new or different wall cladding or roof treatment, removing and replacing windows or doors, fences, driveways — goes through a Minor Heritage Permit, and heritage staff hold delegated authority to approve alterations and new construction that comply with the adopted policies and guidelines. Larger proposals are reviewed by staff and typically forwarded to the Heritage Markham Committee for a recommendation, and only Council has the authority to refuse a heritage permit. Demolition requests must be considered by Council in every case.

That mechanism is a reason to buy in the district deliberately, not a reason to avoid it — but it has to be priced in before the offer, not discovered in the second year of ownership. It is also why the realistic first purchase in Unionville is usually not a century house. It is a townhouse or a detached home in the subdivision belt, where ordinary Markham rules apply, or a condominium at Markham Centre, which brings a monthly fee and a status certificate to review instead of a heritage plan. Robin walks a buyer through which set of constraints a specific address actually carries, in Gujarati, Hindi or English, before an offer is drafted.

The housing stock in Unionville

Three distinct stocks under one name. The village core around Main Street is genuinely old — frame houses from the mid-1800s through the early 1900s, Victorian and Gothic in character, with occasional infill, a small number of townhouses and a boutique condominium among them. West and north of the core sits a belt of freehold detached homes, semis and townhouses built between roughly the 1970s and the 1990s, which is where most first purchases in Unionville actually happen. South and east, around Markham Centre and Enterprise Boulevard, the stock is recent high-rise and stacked-townhouse condominium — the only part of Unionville where an apartment is a normal entry point, and the only part that comes with a monthly fee and a status certificate.

• Main Street Unionville
• Toogood Pond Park
• Frederick Horsman Varley Art Gallery on Main Street Unionville
• Stiver Mill and the summer farmers’ market
• The Millennium Bandstand at Main Street and Fred Varley Drive
• Crosby Memorial Community Centre
• Unionville GO Station on YMCA Boulevard
• Downtown Markham and Enterprise Boulevard

What decides a purchase in Unionville

• The district is a boundary, not a postal address

  A great many homes marketed as Unionville sit outside the heritage conservation district entirely. Confirm the boundary against the specific address with the City before you assume either way.

• Minor permit, major permit, and who decides

  Heritage staff can approve compliant alterations and new construction. Larger proposals go to the Heritage Markham Committee for a recommendation, only Council can refuse, and demolition is always Council’s call.

• Unionville GO is built as a turnaround

  The station was rebuilt with a second track, an island platform and a turnaround track, and Metrolinx’s GO Expansion plan describes service every 15 minutes to Unionville — north of it the pattern is different.

• Century core, subdivision belt, Markham Centre towers

  Freehold in the first two, condominium in the third. The monthly cost, the offer process and the review documents are not the same purchase in any two of them.

Getting around from Unionville

• Unionville GO Station on YMCA Boulevard, on the Stouffville line, rebuilt with a second track, an island platform and a turnaround track
• Metrolinx’s GO Expansion plan for this line describes two-way all-day service every 15 minutes to Unionville — read the posted timetable for the trips that exist today before you rely on any of it
• Viva Purple bus rapid transit in the Highway 7 rapidway, stopping at Unionville and Downtown Markham between Richmond Hill Centre Terminal and Cornell Terminal
• York Region Transit locally, including Route 1 Highway 7 East and Route 8 Kennedy
• Highway 407 ETR, which is tolled, with Highway 404 reached west along Highway 7 or 16th Avenue

Check the current timetable against your actual working hours before you make a commute the reason you buy.

The mistake first-time buyers make in Unionville

Pricing a renovation before confirming whether the address is inside the heritage conservation district. Inside it, the exterior work you were planning becomes a City decision as well as yours, judged against the district’s conservation plan rather than against what the neighbours have done — and a refusal is Council’s to give. Find out which side of the boundary the property sits on, and read the district plan, before you commit to a renovation budget or a closing date.