Photo Credit: The Planning Partnership

Neighbourhood Design:
Design Brief for Suburban Development & Neighbourhood Mixed Use Centres

Photo Credit: The Planning Partnership Photo Credit: The Planning Partnership

A Committed Approach to Healthy Communities

The City of Kitchener is committed to ensuring residents continue to enjoy a high quality of life through the development of complete communities communities that are well-designed, offer transportation choices, have the right mix of housing, a good range of jobs, and easy access to stores and services to meet daily needs.

Photo Credit: The Planning Partnership

Background
In December 1999, the City of Kitchener approved an Urban Design Manual that lays out expectations regarding the quality of urban design on a city-wide basis. The manual includes guidelines and standards along with a section for design briefs, intended to provide developers with detailed design suggestions and requirements for a specific site or type of land use. The City has prepared a new series of general and specific design guidelines in a new Suburban Design Brief outlining the Citys expectations for new development in suburban neighbourhoods. This set of guidelines is part of the Citys Urban Design Manual which forms one part of a larger neighbourhood and community design strategy, as noted right. The new guidelines will be applied to all applications for development located in suburban neighbourhoods with emphasis on subdivision development and neighbourhood shopping centres. This document provides an introduction to the Citys approach to suburban development and summarizes the major design objectives and design guidelines contained in the Design Brief. A full copy of the Design Brief is available at www.kitchener.ca

Walkable neighbourhoods ensure neighbourhood features like this playground are within easy walking distance.
City of Kitchener Official Plan Policy Direction & Growth Management Strategy
General Community Design Guidelines

General Neighbourhood Design Guidelines

More Detailed Central Neighbourhood Guidelines

More Detailed Suburban Neighbourhood Guidelines

What Will the New Guidelines Accomplish?

By developing design guidelines the City can: ensure the creation of attractive, walkable neighbourhoods that contribute to complete communities; help to promote, reinforce and implement specific City policies and initiatives such as the Pedestrian Charter and the Plan for a Healthy Kitchener; address recent public feedback that identified the need for more active and visible park spaces, access to jobs and shops and pedestrian friendly streetscapes; better integrate urban design into the neighbourhood design process and development approvals process; and, help provide direction to accommodate and support City, Regional and Provincial growth management strategies, such as the promotion of compact transit supportive development and convenient access to a variety of park space employment.

Specific Guidelines for Suburban Development & Neighbourhood Mixed Use Centres (The Design Brief)

Detailed Site Design Guidelines (Site Planning)

The suburban neighbourhoods are located in the outer portions of the city shown above

NEIGHBOURHOOD DESIGN - A COMMITTED APPROACH TO HEALTHY COMMUNITIES

Photo Credit: Kevin Fergin, Stantec (Kitchener)

Key Design Terms

Below is a list of terms that apply to neighbourhood design that are used within this document as well as the Design Brief. A full glossary of terms is available in the Design Brief. Focal Points: Points of interest or activity that contribute to neighbourhood character and identity (see demonstration plan,
pg. 6).

Gateways: Important entrances into the neighbourhood or community that are reinforced through specific design elements such as landscaped medians, special signage or enhanced landscaping treatments. High Density Housing: Townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings. Low Density Housing: Single detached housing units, semidetached houses and duplex houses. Modified Grid Street Pattern: An interconnected series of local, collector and arterial streets that form short blocks and generally contribute to a grid-like pattern with some variations to address site slopes, parks, wetlands and focal points (see demonstration plan, pg. 6). Neighbourhood Mixed Use Area: an area with a mix of transit supportive uses including retail stores, offices and higher density housing with ground floor commercial uses. Priority Lots: Special lots in prominent public view that contribute to neighbourhood identity, character or image such as corner lots, lots next to, or facing park spaces, or terminating vista lots at the end of street intersection. Neighbourhood Concept Plan (NCP): An illustrative plan that shows the major neighbourhood design elements such as existing site features, streets, transit routes, park spaces, general lotting orientation and design opportunities such as prominent views and focal points. Streets, Arterial: Major external community streets that experience high volumes of traffic. Streets, Collector: Major internal community streets that experience high volumes of traffic. Streets, Local: Shorter streets which are connected to other local streets or to collector streets. Streets, Priority: Important community or neighbourhood streets that includes enhanced streetscape elements that contribute to local identity, culture or unique streetscape elements.

An example of feature signage at a neighbourhood gateway.

Photo Credit: The Planning Partnership

Focal points add interest and promote activity in neighbourhoods.

Demonstration Plan

C corner lot, P Park Space Lot, T Terminating Vista Lot

NEIGHBOURHOOD DESIGN - A COMMITTED APPROACH TO HEALTHY COMMUNITIES

Photo Credit: MHBC

Streets, Window: An internal local street that runs parallel to an abutting arterial street allowing houses to face major streets. Streetscape: Specific design elements in the public and private realm that give character to the street such as boulevard trees, street utilities and building facades, etc. Walkability (walkable neighbourhoods): Convenient pedestrian access to major destinations such as neighbourhood focal points; schools; neighbourhood shopping centre or park spaces, as well as a 5-minute walking distance to a defined focal point (see demonstration plan, pg. 6).

Primary Design Objectives

The Design Brief is based on seven primary objectives that form the basis for the Citys design guidelines. The primary design objectives will be applied to all new suburban development with emphasis on subdivision development and community planning: 1. Walkability: to create walkable neighbourhoods that are well connected and fully accessible to major destinations and surrounding neighbourhoods; 2. Variety: to build neighbourhoods that provide a range of housing types, park and open spaces and neighbourhood focal points. 3. Place Making: to improve streetscape quality, neighbourhood character and sense of place; 4. Conservation: to conserve, protect and integrate existing natural and cultural heritage resources; 5. Connectivity: to provide multiple route options for all modes of travel. 6. Transit Supportive: to design and build neighbourhoods that provides greater opportunity for transit usage. 7. Safety: to promote design practices that contributes to neighbourhood safety. 8. Balance: to promote neighbourhood design quality through a balanced approach with economic considerations. 9. Liveability: to promote design solutions that contributes to sustainable practices, the celebration of arts and culture, healthy and complete communities.
Photo Credit: Grand River Transit

Neighbourhoods are designed to promote transit usage.

Cultural heritage resources like the Pioneer Tower are conserved and integrated into neighbourhoods.

NEIGHBOURHOOD DESIGN - A COMMITTED APPROACH TO HEALTHY COMMUNITIES

The Key Design Guidelines

The Design Brief is organized into two major design guidelines sections. The Primary Design Guidelines present a series of general design guidelines that apply to large scale design elements, such as existing site features, the street network and parks and open space system. These large scale design elements are considered structural elements in neighbourhood design. The Secondary Design Guidelines address neighbourhood character and livability issues such as creating pedestrian friendly streets, street tree planting, building design opportunities and park design details. These guidelines provide the necessary details to support the structural elements.

Primary (Structural) Design Guidelines

Conserve and integrate natural and cultural heritage resources as prominent neighbourhood features and focal points. Also, create strong views to prominent site features. Provide an integrated, modified grid street pattern and trail system that connects neighbourhoods and provides multiple street connections to major pedestrian destinations such as transit routes, shopping centres, school sites and employment areas. Create walkable neighbourhoods based on a maximum fiveminute walking distance (400-500 m radius) to key destinations such as parks, schools and shopping areas (See demonstration plan, pg. 6). Provide a variety of active and passive park spaces within five minutes of most homes with high visibility along public streets and to provide linear park spaces that link to major trails or larger park space. Provide commercial and mixed use development within a central location. Incorporate traffic calming features into the proposed street network to manage traffic and promote pedestrian safety. Provide a variety of housing types within each neighbourhood with higher densities located within short walking distance of planned or existing transit routes and commercial areas.

Pedestrian linkages, like this walking trail, contribute to walkable neighbourhoods.

Pedestrian friendly streets feature street trees and varied building setbacks.
Photo Credit: The Planning Partnership

Secondary (Detailed) Design Guidelines

Recognize major community and neighbourhood streets (collector streets) as priority streets and include special or enhanced design elements such as larger street trees,
This traffic roundabout is an example of traffic calming features that promote pedestrian safety, manage traffic and include public transit.

NEIGHBOURHOOD DESIGN - A COMMITTED APPROACH TO HEALTHY COMMUNITIES

subdivision entrance features, special building designs or decorative lighting to reinforce neighbourhood identity. Encourage special landscape features such as landscaped medians, enhanced landscaped boulevards and gateway signs located at major neighbourhood entrances. Create pedestrian-friendly streets through consistent street tree planting, houses with flushed or recessed garages, varied building setbacks along longer streets and architectural variety and pedestrian scale, decorative street lighting. Orient lots, primary building facades and building entrances to face public streets with emphasis given to collector and priority streets. Promote eyes on the street. Provide a variety of lot frontages for single-detached housing along each street and block. Reduce the number of driveways along designated transit routes through alternative forms of housing that require few or no driveways and promote pedestrian friendly streetscapes. Encourage street tree planting. Require one street tree in front of each house, at least three trees on side yards and additional planting along park frontages. Encourage larger street trees at gateway entrances and along priority streets. Encourage dedicated bicycle lanes along primary collector streets. Also, integrate trails along bicycle routes and promote trails to commercial and employment areas. Require enhanced building elevations on special priority lots which are located in prominent public view. Priority lots include corner lots, terminating vista lots, lots facing public park spaces or heritage resources and gateway lots located at major neighbourhood entrances. Encourage active park designs that are highly visible from the public street (minimum 50 per cent street frontage as a guiding principle), which are constructed early in the construction process and include amenities that contribute to a neighbourhood theme or celebrate arts and culture. Locate commercial and institutional buildings close to the primary street and ensure all building facades relate to the residential neighbourhood or theme. Provide direct access for pedestrians. Discourage noise walls along major streets in favour of window streets with houses facing the major street or through alternative design solutions or land uses.
Special features and elevations are planned for priority lots, like this corner lot. Incorporate neighbourhood theme into commercial building facades. Higher density housing is planned on bus routes to provide a greater population of potential riders.

NEIGHBOURHOOD DESIGN - A COMMITTED APPROACH TO HEALTHY COMMUNITIES

Photo Credit: The Planning Partnership

What Does This All Mean?

In order to illustrate key objectives and specific design guidelines such as neighbourhood focal points, priority streets and gateway features, the City of Kitchener along with consultant group, The Planning Partnership, have created a demonstration plan. The demonstration plan is a concept drawing that illustrates several design strategies that contribute to complete communities. Emphasis has been given to housing variety, transit supportive development and direct street connections to employment areas and public transportation. The demonstration plan achieves the minimum population and employment density targets established by the Province of Ontarios Places to Grow Act which will be further defined through the Citys and Regions Growth Management Strategy.

Arterial Street

Priority Street

Future Development

Community Gateway

Traffic Calming

Neighbourhood Mixed Use Area

Focal Point

Bus Route

inute w alk

Collector Street

Future Development

Storm Water Management

Five m

Trail

Existing Woodland

Roundabout Intersections

Focal Point Employment Area

Primary and Secondary Gateway Entrances

Window Streets

Transit Support Development

NEIGHBOURHOOD DESIGN - A COMMITTED APPROACH TO HEALTHY COMMUNITIES

The Approvals Process:

The Design Brief for Suburban Development outlines the primary design objectives and requirements for developers regarding new development in suburban neighbourhoods with an emphasis on subdivision applications and neighbourhood shopping centres. Developers still have flexibility to come up with creative design solutions that meet the Citys expectations when making an application to develop a particular site. In addition, there may be sites that require additional flexibility on behalf of the City or the developer based on site-specific constraints.

Photo Credit: The Planning Partnership

Supporting Information
Some specific guidelines may require technical supporting information or analysis to implement; as such, the Design Brief includes a series of guideline tips for reference purposes to assist with the approvals process. Specific examples may include: Existing Conditions Plan that illustrates existing site features. Neighbourhood Concept Plan that shows primary neighbourhood design features and structural elements. Priority Lot Plan that shows location of priority lots. Streetscape Plan that shows gateway details, enhanced landscaping details and street tree location and information. Conceptual Park Plan to show preliminary park function and design elements. Conceptual Grading Plans to demonstrate that proposed design features can function early in the process. On-street Parking Plan to ensure sufficient parking is being provided on City streets or alternative locations.

The Design Process:

To help ensure a smooth progression through the application approval process, all stakeholders including developers (applicants) and City staff, should follow these steps: Step 1: Understanding context: The applicant, City staff and relevant agencies should have a clear understanding of the existing context and site conditions. The applicant should explore ways to integrate existing features into the proposed development and understand the design opportunities

NEIGHBOURHOOD DESIGN - A COMMITTED APPROACH TO HEALTHY COMMUNITIES

and challenges by conducting a site walk with staff early in the process. Step 2: Pre-Submission: The applicant submits a neighbourhood concept plan with preliminary neighbourhood vision and key design guidelines. City staff with relevant agencies review the concept plan, provides comments and identifies relevant studies. (Refer to Design Review Checklist provided in the full Design Brief for more information.) Step 3: Formal Application Submission: After integrating feedback from staff on the conceptual plan a formal application is submitted and includes the refined neighbourhood concept plan and supporting design analysis indicating how development addresses the Design Brief for Suburban Development. Step 4: The Circulation Process: The application is circulated to appropriate staff, agencies (Region of Waterloo, GRCA, etc.) and public as required for the particular application. Step 5: The Approval Process: Staff review circulation comments and provide recommendations. The application, with staff recommendations and Design Brief review comments, is taken before the Development and Technical Services Committee for consideration.
Step 1: Understand the context and identify opportunities Step 2: Set up a pre-submission meeting and discuss preliminary vision

Step 3: Include changes and submit formal application with refined vision

Step 4: Feedback and comments (circulation process)

Public Notification

Step 5: Step 5: Approval

QUESTIONS:
Questions about the Design Brief process and guidelines can be directed to the Citys Planning Division at (519) 741-2426. On-line copies of the Design Brief are available at www.kitchener.ca under Planning.

NEIGHBOURHOOD DESIGN - A COMMITTED APPROACH TO HEALTHY COMMUNITIES