City of Toronto Childcare Guidelines 2012

Location: Toronto, Ontario
Type: Guidelines
Date: 2012
Client: City of Toronto

Read the Guidelines (PDF 27MB)

In 2012, the City of Toronto commissioned LGA to produce a Child Care Design & Technical Guideline that would be a recommended resource not only for city-run child care centres, but also for those operated by others but overseen by the City. This Guideline establishes criteria such as minimum room sizes and window areas, and serves as a detailed design and technical guide. An important reason for producing the Guideline was the switch to Full Day Kindergarten: this meant that children aged four to six who were previously in child care for half the day would no longer require space in the program; therefore more child care spaces could be designed for infants and toddlers. Given that the child-to-teacher ratio is different for each age group, optimal room size also varies. One objective of the Child Care Design & Technical Guideline is to facilitate conversion of preschool rooms into spaces more suitable for infants and toddlers. The Guideline has been so successful that the City of Toronto recently hired LGA to produce an updated second edition.