Look and feel guidelines

“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”

- Winston Churchill

A reader sent me some ideas and pictures (great tools at getting ideas across). The issue at hand – as I understand it - is the aesthetic guidelines in the city. 

Many of you would know that the City’s Heritage Development guidelines are set up to ensure that renovations and infill development in the heritage designated areas are consistent with a “heritage” look and feel – particularly when it comes to scale.

My reader sent two examples of buildings that are outside of the designated heritage areas that likely wouldn’t have been developed/renovated as they were, if within the heritage area.

I don’t begrudge private developers who play by the rules for developing properties as the see fit (I may criticize design, but try to accept that a business decision by a developer is her/his own business). 

Still, different rules could lead to different outcomes by challenging developers to go down a different road (the risk here is, of course, that if the rules make development cost-prohibitive we may see empty lots stay that way for too long or older buildings become dilapidated because no developer wants to take on an “appropriate” redevelopment scheme).

The photos are of an infill project that is likely less than 80% of the block’s average height (as would be required in a heritage zone) and of a brick building that has been given a non-brick (reportedly vinyl) makeover. 

I know a landlord (not related to the buildings pictured) who has been trying to redevelop his building exterior to better represent heritage standards.  He has not been able to justify the expense in terms of dollars and cents to this point.  His building might actually look better than it currently does if it had new vinyl siding, but that’s not in the cards as its in the heritage zone.

The problems is, renovation dollars applied to fixing up kitchens, bathrooms and other interior elements tend to increase rents, whereas there might be less of a correlation between rents and exteriors (I’ve lived in a few very nice apartments in “ugly” buildings and paid higher rents than I could have in buildings with properly portioned windows and repaired brick work).

You may recall (if you’ve been reading for years or have scoured the archive) that I’ve talked about the vinyl issue before (way back in 2006), when I suggested that exteriors may not be the most important part of buildings to tackle in a city with significant substandard housing. 

Now, with what is possibly a more nuanced understanding of the issue, I do think that we could consider putting in more effort as a community toward encouraging developers to be cognizant  of look and feel issues when working in our city (and helping them be motivated to act accordingly, as some are aware of these issues but not able to make a business case to go down the aesthetically appealing road). 

Thoughts always welcome.