Urban Design Guidelines - Employment Areas - Town of Ajax

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EMPLOYMENT AREAS URBAN DESIGN GUIDELINESsame vein, buildings proposed on sites adjacent toHighway 401 shall be designed so that they front onthe Highway and exemplify high quality designfeatures including built form, landscaping, andsignage – in other words, treatment that is equal, ifnot superior, to that intended for prestigedevelopment where building façade(s) andlandscaping has frontal exposure to an arterialroad.”Buildings with exposure to streets on two or threesides will consider the priority of street frontages inthe quality of their appearance. Highway 401 willhave first priority followed by arterials, then localroads.Where natural/ existing grades may effectivelyscreen parking, servicing, or storage areas fromview, they may be located flexibly on a site.The Highway 401 corridor is a special opportunity forseveral reasons:• Highway 401 is one of the primary routes linkingAjax to the GTA and points beyond.• Employment lands flanking Highway 401 cancreate a positive and unique image for Ajaxwithin the GTA.• Employment lands exist at the east and westgateways to Ajax along Highway 401.• The railway is located immediately south ofHighway 401, and is actively used both forfreight and passenger purposes. The GO TrainStation is located along Highway 401.o Active freight trains may create animage of ‘Ajax at work’.o There is an opportunity to create apositive impression and interestingexperience for passengers of GO orVIA.Priority of frontages for locating high qualitydesign features, as well as parking, servicingand storage areas.It is important that the treatment of the Highway 401corridor positively reinforce its many roles as agateway or first impression of Ajax. It goes beyondthe employment lands themselves. The imageestablished along Highway 401 is a critical townwidecomponent of defining the Town. That is, theexperience of the Highway 401 corridor is key tocommunicate a clear civic identity, and thus is to betreated with care.• Provide a landscape treatment that can beperceived while traveling at high speed. Thismay involve large, simple, repetitive and/or boldforms.JULY 2006 57
• Consider corporate signage visible to vehicleson Highway 401, in front of the railway, as analternative to the site or building-mountedsignage of adjacent businesses that is blockedwhile trains are parked on the tracks.• Consider a landscape treatment that celebratesthe activity of both freight and passenger trains.Parked freight trains mean that a business inAjax is busy.• Consider the motion of trains in the design of thelandscape treatment, for instance, theiracceleration and deceleration from the station.• Consider a gateway sign or element thatannounces Ajax and its unique civic image.• Ensure the treatment of Highway 401 isconsistent with the treatment of Ajax as a whole.The establishment of an identity through the newemployment lands provides the opportunity tocoordinate this treatment as a whole.Refer to the Highway Beautification Study (2005)prepared by the Town of Ajax EconomicDevelopment Office.5.4 Celebration of HistoryAjax’s unique history, particularly as it relates to therailway and wartime activities, provides anopportunity to remember and celebrate the past. Itis beyond the scope of this document to detail thishistory; however, a variety of interpretive ideas areset out as precedents. These ideas explore waysthat historic details relating to built form andlandscape can be incorporated in the contemporaryemployment area environment.• Provide an element of historic celebration onsites adjacent to Highway 401 and arterialroads.• Encourage elements of historic celebration onother sites.5.5 Large SitesUsers with very large site requirements for buildingfootprint(s), transportation or storage needs, shouldgenerally follow the guidelines in this document.The scale of the development, however, may bebeyond that envisioned by some of the guidelines.In those cases, the goal is to apply ‘normal’ scale tokey locations within the large sites. Key locationsinclude pedestrian and vehicular access points,passenger drop-offs, office components, and edgeconditions at the most important corners or along themost important street(s). At these locations, building58
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EMPLOYMENT AREASURBAN DESIGN GUIDEL
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interchange will make a large area
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Urban Design Guidelines - Employment Areas - Town of Ajax

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