Design Guidelines
Design guidelines are a set of design statements to guide land development to achieve a desired level of design quality for the elements of the physical environment. They outline and illustrate how the city's urban design goals and objectives will be achieved.
Design guidelines may be developed for certain types of building forms, land uses, streetscapes, streets or specific areas in the city. Council-adopted design guidelines are utilized in the review and evaluation of development applications or projects initiated by the city.
The City of Burlington's urban design guidelines reflect our commitment to a high standard of design.
Mid-Rise Building Guidelines
Share your feedback on a draft of the Mid-Rise Building Guidelines - November 2018
View existing Design Guidelines
Mid-Rise Building Guidelines
As the city grows, Burlington will continue to receive applications for all sizes of developments, including mid-rise buildings. To help evaluate these applications, the City of Burlington is developing Mid-Rise Building Guidelines.
What are mid-rise buildings?
Mid-rise buildings are bigger in scale than houses but smaller than towers and have a good relationship to the street. This means that while the walls of a mid-rise are tall enough to provide lots of usable space inside the building, they are low enough to let the sun in and open the view to the sky from the street. A well-designed and placed mid-rise building should also support a comfortable pedestrian environment and make the street come alive by lining the sidewalk with doors and windows that house things like stores, restaurants, services and community uses.
The height of mid-rise buildings varies. In Burlington, mid-rise buildings range between five and 11 storeys. Mid-rise buildings may contain a single use, like an office or residential apartment, but usually contain a mix of uses, which may include things like retail, office, community services, and residential all in the same building.
What are Mid-Rise Building Guidelines?
Burlington is creating design guidelines for mid-rise buildings. These guidelines will be used by city staff to evaluate development applications where mid-rise buildings between five and 11 storeys are proposed.
Feedback from the public has been gathered to help shape the guidelines which will be presented to Burlington City Council in early 2019.
The mid-rise building guidelines will address things like:
- building use, e.g. retail, commercial, residential
- building step backs from street wall to allow for sunlight and sky views
- street level features, e.g. sidewalks in front of buildings, trees, benches.
The mid-rise building guidelines do not outline where mid-rise buildings can be located in the city. This is determined by the city's new Official Plan and the Zoning Bylaw.
Why are mid-rise building guidelines important?
As the Burlington’s population grows over the next 50 years, new business and residential growth will be accommodated in the areas around the city’s major transit stations (called mobility hubs) in the form of higher density developments, including tall and mid-rise buildings. These buildings will play an important role in how the city will feel and look.
When development applications for mid-rise buildings are submitted to the city, the design guidelines will be used to evaluate the applications and ensure the proposal meets the city’s urban design standards.
Draft of Mid-Rise Building Guidelines: Thank you for your feedback
Thank you to those who have contributed their feedback to help shape the mid-rise building guidelines through the following public engagement opportunities:
- Mid-Rise Building Guidelines open houses held on Aug. 22 and 30, Dec, 13 and 18, 2018 and Jan. 16, 2019
- Mid-rise building guidelines online survey.
Based on the feedback gathered, you told us you like the approach of the draft guidelines as it relates to:
- managing transitions from new mid-rise buildings to established neighbourhoods
- planning for streets and open spaces to protect pedestrian comfort
- design that allows for sunlight, sky views, and privacy.
Thank you to others who expressed concern related to growth and intensification, generally with respect to future development within the downtown. These concerns are related to land-use planning and will be addressed through ongoing work on the city's new Official Plan and the Mobility Hubs Area-Specific studies. All feedback provided will be shared with city staff working on these projects.
Next Steps
A report for Burlington City Council to consider the revised draft Mid-Rise Building Guidelines will be presented on March 5, 2019. A copy of the report will be available online starting Feb. 22.
What We've Heard
| August 2018 |
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Based on feedback gathered from an online survey and public open houses in August 2018, members of the public told us they value the following when it comes to mid-rise design:
When it comes to design features of mid-rise buildings, participants ranked the following items, from most important to least:
Other top design features identified, included:
View the presentation from the August 2018 open house events |
For more information, please email todd.evershed@burlington.ca
Completed Guidelines
| Tall Building Design Guidelines |
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In spring 2017, Burlington City Council approved tall building design guidelines for Burlington. The guidelines play an important part in how the city grows, helping to build communities with a high quality of life and place. Tall building guidelines provide design direction for the components of tall buildings: Building Base (Podium); Building Middle (Tower); Building Top, and promote urban design excellence and support vibrant streets. The tall building guidelines do not outline where tall buildings can be located in the city. This is determined by the city's Official Plan and the Zoning Bylaw. The city's tall building guidelines were created based on:
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View other existing Design Guidelines