We invite you to download urban design guidelines, sample landscape strips and image routes. On this page you can:
Urban Design Guidelines
Urban design is both visual and practical. People are more likely to visit a site, a neighbourhood, or a city if it looks good and functions well. Using best urban design practices ensures this. Good design can help make people happier and calmer. Well-designed sites maintain their appeal and increase values in their area.
The guidelines provide performance standards for a number of site design elements including building orientation and facades, parking and circulation, lighting, stormwater management, and landscaping.
Planning staff use the guidelines to determine the merits of a particular proposal and to review Site Plan Approval applications.
The Guidelines were updated June 25, 2024. For more information about this, please visit the Get Involved website.
Download Urban Design Guidelines
Sample Landscape Strips
Landscape strips include planting designs that make it easy for you to meet the City’s landscape strip requirements and enhance your property. The intent of these planting designs is to improve both the quantity and quality of landscaping along City streets and sidewalks and within private lands.
Examples include defining a property's boundary, enhancing a façade and entrance, framing signs or breaking up a parking lot.
Download Sample Landscape Strips
Image Route Guidelines
Image Routes are key streets throughout Thunder Bay that have been prioritised for improvements in both their appearance and functional role. These Image Routes are well-travelled corridors that create a continuous functional and cultural link throughout the City.
The Image Route Guidelines were developed to guide improvements along the four identified routes. If your site is visible from an Image Route, there many be additional design standards from the guidelines that apply.
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