The City of Toronto is growing and that means every corner of the city is seeing its fair share of new developments rise. With nearly every development that we see across the GTA, we also see the development notice boards that follow them. These boards go up whenever the development will require a zoning bylaw or official plan amendment, and they tell passersby how large the proposed development is. Typically that includes how tall the proposal is, how many residential units it would add to the area, the amount of commercial space proposed, the number of parking spaces, and more details.

A model of the city's current development notice signs, image courtesy of The City of Toronto

As informative as they are, the large blocks of lettering paired with the black and white drawings makes the development notice signs confusing and not very appealing visually. In an effort to change this, the City of Toronto has launched a pilot project with redesigned development notice boards at various sites around the city in an effort to gauge the public response before the issue comes before City Council in June.

A model of the city's new development notice signs, image courtesy of The City of Toronto

With the last update of the notice signs being in 2009, the city of Toronto's new proposed development notice signs will feature less text but be more visually oriented. The new development notice signs will feature  a colored rendering of the proposed development, a graphic summary of the development's impact on the neighborhood, as well as a QR code that enables residents to give feed back digitally.

The city's new development notice sign at 250 Lawrence Ave West, image courtesy of The City of Toronto

Above we have an image of the first development notice sign of the city's pilot project, located at 250 Lawrence Ave West.

What do you think of city's revised development notice signs? Let us know by leaving a comment in the field provided at the bottom of this page.