Vaughan greenfield heritage - architectural control

NRU
May 10, 2017
By Dominik Matusik

On some of its last remaining greenfield lands, the City of Vaughan is trying to preserve natural and built heritage to create a gentler transition from urban to rural built form using architectural design guidelines and a control architect to help guide form and preserve natural heritage.

Last week Vaughan committee of the whole approved design guidelines to complement the masterplan for the Pine Heights Community. The goal of the guideline is to promote a variety of architectural forms, create attractive streetscapes, enhance the area’s natural and built heritage, and establish a “high quality upscale architectural character” in the community.

Approved in 2014, the 230- ha Pine Heights Community subdivision includes predominantly single-family
detached houses, townhouses and a small commercial area. It will incorporate the former hamlet of Purpleville, which includes a historic cemetery and post office. Additionally, the site is close to the Carrying-Place Trail, an important First Nation peoples trading route.

“The primary focus of the guidelines is to promote high quality housing with an attractive character that complements the neighbourhood’s unique countryside setting,” deputy city manager John MacKenzie told NRU in an email. “The intent…is to maintain a positive relationship between the built form and public spaces in order to yield quality streetscapes while encouraging architectural variety and innovation.

The staff report also establishes architecture firm John G. Williams Architect as the “Control Architect” for the Pine Heights Community. This means that, in addition to the city’s site plan approval process, builders will also have to seek approval for their designs from the control architect who will assess proposals for compliance with the guidelines.

John G. Williams Architect president and guideline author David Stewart told NRU that the typical of those required by Vaughan for recent greenfield developments.

“The intent here is to ensure a high quality community,” Stewart says. “What we’re trying to do in terms of built form is put limitations on garage projections, put in place minimum standards for porch steps, fenestration and wall articulation so that we get an animated streetscape and what we want to avoid are monotonous, low-quality housing forms.”

There are challenges to creating built form inspired by local precedent, however. While the plan emphasizes architecture that is “heritage based,” complementary to the existing rural character and built around “local precedent,” Stewart explains that, in practice, this is difficult to achieve.

“I don’t think we’re going to reflect realistically the rural character of the existing built form in the area. There was an old Purpleville post office, which was altered over the years so it doesn’t give us much to work on. So when we say ‘heritage-inspired’ that’s not necessarily deriving from the local area but more or less from precedents which could be old world, as well as new world… which might play off Georgian, Italianate, Victorian influences.”

However, MacKenzie maintains that architectural control guidelines like the ones regulating the Pine Heights Community are a necessary part of ensuring good built form.