Urban Design Guidelines - Employment Areas - Town of Ajax

5.2 Four CornersSites at the crossroads of important streets can takeon characteristics similar to landmark or gatewaylocations. These ‘four corner’ locations provide theopportunity to create an active, community-orientingfocal point, where they can take advantage of theactivity at the corner. Four corners locationsrepresent ideal opportunities to locate public identityelements; however, such elements can occurthroughout employment areas, including at T-intersections.A four corners can be created by built formand/or landscaping.• Address all four corners of the intersection witheither built form or enhanced landscaping. Builtform is preferred. Locate buildings close to thecorner at the minimum setback and providemain building entrances addressing theintersection.• Provide a pedestrian amenity space at theintersection such as a plaza or seating area.• Relate built form on all corners, throughcoordinating setbacks, massing, heights andcompatible architectural styles, elements anddetails.• Relate landscaping on all corners, throughsymmetrically compatible spaces &arrangements of elements.Refer to the map “Street Hierarchy and PublicIdentity Features” (Figure 6, p 25) for potential fourcorners locations.5.3 Highway 401As briefly highlighted in Section 2.1 of thisdocument, the Ajax Official Plan contains a numberof design-related policies for employment areas,including policies for the development of prestigeemployment sites adjacent to Highway 401. Giventhe role and function of Highway 401 as the Town’sprimary transportation corridor, and the specialimage for Ajax, the Official Plan singles outdevelopment of adjacent employment sites forspecial treatment.In terms of urban design, the prime exposure ofthese lands to Highway 401 means that no outdoordisplay of items such as motor vehicles, watercraft,snowmobiles, cranes or other equipment ispermitted on lands visible from the Highway.Similarly, except for limited amount of visitor parking,parking and loading facilities generally shall not belocated between the building(s) and Highway 401, inorder to promote a prestige appearance. In the56