04-27-2026, 09:33 AM
(04-27-2026, 09:20 AM)westwardloo Wrote:(04-26-2026, 02:50 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Please tell me which North American cities have hard architectural standards controlling whether any given building is to be allowed to be built.
I believe both the City of Toronto and City of Vancouver have design standards boards that review every development application. They provide feedback to present to staff and council. Most of the time they do not stop developments, but recommend changes to applications to make them more coherent.
I think the point of have an design standards board in the City would be to help staff and council understand the basic elements that make up a well designed building, but would also let developers know they can't just constantly propose these garbage development and expect the city to approve them. Developers would start paying a little more up front for the design prior to going to council to avoid having to revise the proposal or go to the OLT.
Design review boards are not legally binding as per the planning act, as such a developer can submit something to the review board have it reviewed and then they can still turn it into a value engineered dumpster fire at a later time. There is nothing legally stopping them from doing such provided the general building still conforms to the SPA that was submitted.