City planners of Kitchener are looking at the future of downtown development.

The city is calling it a building block for eventful guidelines they plan to develop over the next year.

“It has two major purposes. One is to outline in a very broad way our general expectations for new tall buildings and secondly just to communicate the principles of good tall buildings and to familiarize the community,” says Alain Pinard, Director of Planning for the city of Kitchener.

The city understands developer’s will likely look at the building block as ‘red tape.’ However, council is hoping to find a balance that will encourage appropriate development.

The challenge will be ensuring the continued construction of tall buildings and keeping the downtown re-development on track.

Pinard says there are some issues associated with high-rise buildings.

 “The orientation of the building and the relationship of that building to other buildings can make a big difference in terms of micro climates, wind impacts, sun exposure and shadowing.”

It`s one of the reasons why the city wants to encourage height set back from street level.

“People tend to relate much better to it on the street, it`s called more human scale,” says Pinard.

Pinard adds there has never been more development in the downtown core.

With reporting by Max Wark