Attract families. Attract creators and entrepreneurs. Create jobs. Enhance quality of place. Build a unique community identity. Enhance property owner satisfaction. Support long-term property value (investor peace of mind, nest egg for residents). These are core elements of a new future for Canal Flats.
The NEW Canal Flats will be a housing innovator, rebuild its core as a work-live community, and feature new, mixed use commercial/residential development. The result will be the kind of cool, affordable, authentic mountain community that is atmospheric, that residents have pride in, and that newcomers are attracted to.
There’s lots of space for new development in Canal Flats (up to 2000 more people). It can be tough to imagine what’s not there now. So to step into the gap, the Village has generated visual design guidelines to help inspire developers, builders, and investors. Guidelines can also help reduce conflict in the development approval process by communicating what the Village is generally looking for. Guidelines can be helpful in protecting property values by introducing a measure of consistency in new construction.
The Village of Canal Flats has identified “mountain modern” as an appropriate theme for the visual evolution of the village core. Mountain Modern design style is a fresh approach to structures located in mountain settings that combine time-tested architectural forms combined with modern industrial building elements to create an exciting new direction for the Village. Our industrial history is important. So too is the ability to build affordable. Converge these two aspirations and the Guidelines reveal: simple massing, pitched roofs, use of timberframe and metal elements, generous window use, and natural colours.
Residential infill, laneway residential, infill home-based business, mixed use work-live, and commercial uses are illustrated.
Visualization of architectural elements provides a framework in which a successful new development contributes to the overall quality of place success of the village.
These guidelines are not rigid law. We want developers to express architectural creativity. What we have done is to provide a general direction based on our history and our desired future.
The Guidelines have been incorporated into the Village’s new Official Community Plan.
