Site Planning Criteria

William T. Perks was Professor of Urbanism and Planning, Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary.

CMHC has long been in the business of devising and promulgating design standards for housing and urban development. Indeed, this is one of the lesser-known roles of the Corporation. It can be said that in the period since 1950, CMHC’s influence in shaping the quality of urban environments through its several advisory services has been considerable and generally salutary. Indeed, had it not been for the leverage and example in standards exercised by CMHC since 1950, the soundness and steadily progressive quality of housing and site planning in this country would not have been what they are. Site Planning Criteria is an updated version of a publication which, under one title or another, has been issued periodically for the past 25 years.

Standards, and our conception of good, sound criteria, for site development change and evolve over time as our habits, preferences, building technology, and ability to pay for better housing conditions change and improve. They also evolve in concert with advances in our understanding of individual behaviour and family needs in the modern society, and how these might be served or nourished through architectural design and the planning of broader, environmental conditions. Criteria attempts to keep pace with these changes. It offers valuable leadership and guidance to planners, home-builders, public officials, and architects. This CMHC publication is directed to all, but most specifically to those agencies involved in “public and non-profit and co-operative housing where CMHC is providing either direct or subsidy financing.” For those agencies, CMHC demands that the criteria be observed (at a minimum).

Criteria divides into four parts, with a fifth section on the definitions of conventional terms and technical phrases. The first two parts describe and explain the essential factors involved in locating housing on a site and adapting and developing the site for the many requirements that go with housing (open spaces, services and utilities, traffic, pedestrian ways, etc.). A third part (only two pages) deals with “conventional lots.” Part IV gives attention to “comprehensively planned housing” — that is, groupings of houses on an assembly of several properties or one big site. Here, the criteria for planning range across a full spectrum of considerations, from children areas and communal spaces for the elderly, to vehicular parking, storage needs, and refuse disposal.

Site Planning Criteria is a well organized and typographically composed publication, written in concise, simple language (English and French between the same covers). It can be profitably used by practitioners and students of planning and architecture, as well as by those who want to obtain CMHC financial assistance.