The city’s planning division now has guidelines that should help developers keep their sites in sync with the city’s urban design.
The City of Thunder Bay planning division, along with Brook McIlroy Consultants, have established citywide urban design and landscaping guidelines for developers to use for building sites and roads.
Leslie McEachern, a manager in the city’s planning division, said the urban design vision is a two-step project and the consulting team will look at urban design and landscaping guidelines for the entire city before moving onto detailed streetscaping guidelines.
But the goal of the project is to have those guidelines in place to help direct developers in the design their sites.
“It’s in place to really guide development in the community,” McEachern said. “It’s to assist developers and architects working within the design community to develop their site plans and make applications for site plans that are consistent with the city’s zoning bylaw and city’s official plan.
“It’s really a tool for them in terms of designing their sites.”
She said they are looking at themes for specific corridors and the design guidelines will have unique characteristics for different parts of the city. The Bay Street and Algoma Avenue area would have different design characteristics than the Westfort business area.
“The design guidelines will look at what the existing architecture is and how to integrate new development into that existing building framework and make sure it’s compatible and the buildings are sensitive to each other,” she said.
McEachern said they have started the project already with most of the major construction happening around the spring.
She added they will be holding an open house for the public to view the designs at the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium on Tuesday, Nov. 29 from 4:30 to 9 p.m.
