City of Pickering Official Plan- Edition 6

Development and Subdivision Design
An objective of development and subdivision design is to
ensure new developments are sufficiently compact in form, and
appropriately integrated with Pickering’s existing built form,
heritage and natural features. Appropriate development and
subdivision design should also establish attractive physical
settings that support a wide range of activities, have well
developed pedestrian environments, and can be well served by
public transit.
13.5 City Council shall,
(a) encourage designs and patterns for streets
and major aisles that provide appropriate
access for vehicles, public transit,
pedestrians and cyclists; create view
corridors and vistas where appropriate; and
allow adequate space for utilities and
services;
(b) encourage designs of streets, major aisles,
blocks and lots that create a public realm
supporting comfortable and safe pedestrian
activity and movement both within and
beyond the development;
(c) encourage street patterns and major aisle
arrangements that respect the integrity of the
City’s continuous landform features such as
ridges, and valley and stream corridors, in
both urban and rural areas;
(d) encourage new subdivision streets and
major aisles that generally align on a grid or
modified grid pattern in order to create
development blocks appropriately sized for
their intended use and possible future uses;
(e) where necessary and appropriate,
encourage the use of existing landform and
vegetative features to visually hide or screen
those land uses and activities that detract
from the physical and visual character of an
area;
(f) encourage the design of local road patterns
that provide direct pedestrian access to
transit stops and transfer nodes;
(g) introduce public roads into large blocks of
developable land; and
(h) discourage designs such as reverse lotting
that require long stretches of noise
attenuation or privacy fencing adjacent to
major roads.
CITY POLICY
Development and
Subdivision Design
Views of house fronts are much more
pleasant than continuous fencing
associated with reverse lotting.
PICKERING OFFICIAL PLAN EDITION 6: Chapter Thirteen -- Detailed Design Considerations 269