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Kent Barker est professeur d'architecture de l'Universite de Toronto, et urbaniste consultant de la Societe centrale d'hypotheques et de logement. Il indique dans son article les mesures qui ont amene Ie gouvernement federal a edifier une nouvelle ville a l'endroit ou, pendant la guerre, se trouvait une fabrique de materiel de guerre, a vingt milles a l'est de Toronto, sur les bords du lac Ontario. L'auteur souligne les aspects qui ont amene a en concevoir le plan d'ensemble et a quel point en est sa realisation. AJAX : PLANNING A NEW TOWN IN ONTARIO by Kent Barker* Ajax is situated on the shore of Lake Ontario, some twenty-five miles east of Toronto. Before the war, it was open farmland, dotted with a few houses and barns. The site was selected in 1941 for the location of an important war industry. The Canadian Government, acting through Defence Industries Limited, purchased an area of almost 3,000 acres, and constructed a huge shell-filling plant. In addition to the operational buildings and magazines, the project included its own pumping station, sewage disposal system, steam plant, and many miles of road and railway. Six hundred small houses, plus a number of dormitory buildings, were built to accommodate the thousands of war workers needed to operate the plant. The community was provided with its own post office, banks, hospital, recreational facilities, police and fire departments. The project was named "Ajax" to commemorate the recent naval action off Montevideo which had cost the Nazis the loss of their pocket battleship Graf Spee. During the war, the plant turned out immense quantities of ammunition comprising a very important element in Canada's war production. After the end of hostilities Ajax was occupied, in part, by the University of Toronto. Student enrolment had risen almost overnight to astronomical figures, creating a sudden demand for space and facilities which could not possibly be absorbed by existing accommodation in Toronto. It was a stroke of good fortune that Ajax was available to meet this emergency. Plant buildings were quickly adapted to provide lecture halls, laboratories and drafting rooms. War workers moved out and student veterans moved in. At its peak, the Ajax Division had an enrolment of over 3,300 students of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. The great majority were provided with living accommodation inside the project. The buildings and equipment used by the University of Toronto were under lease from the War Assets Corporation. The residual industrial buildings remained under direct control of War Assets Corporation, while the 600 single family Wartime Houses were controlled and administered by Wartime Housing Limited until it was succeeded by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation early in 1947. (All three Corporations are creatures of the national government.) During the period of occupancy by the University of Toronto the ultimate disposition of the buildings and services in the industrial area hung more or less in the balance. War Assets Corporation dismantled several of the vacant industrial buildings and removed considerable railway trackage. When the University of Toronto decided to vacate early in 1948 there was a continuing demand for the 600 Wartime Houses by veterans who were unable to find housing closer to their employment in Toronto and elsewhere. Thus a situation arose, in which the industrial buildings became a "ghost area" and the long term future of the 600 dwellings was surrounded by uncertainty. The Ajax "village" faced the imminent prospect of becoming an isolated community of small houses, quite unrelated to its region. As successors to Wartime Housing Limited. Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation became concerned with this problem. Not only was the welfare of its tenants endangered, but the practical aspects of future management presented unusual difficulties. In order to provide essential services to the 600 houses, it would be necessary to maintain several miles of pipe lines, a sewage disposal plant, and a water pumping station several times larger than actually required. When the full implications of this problem were brought to light it became apparent that much of the existing plant, representing an investment of many millions, could be readily adapted to peacetime use. *The author would like to take this opportunity of expressing his appreciation of the work of his associates and assistants, who have participated in the planning of Ajax over the past two years: Ants Elken, architect; Bob Briggs, Frank Burcher, Hugh Ellis, Cliff Wilson, Fred Wallis and Josef Kamenicek, students. (Note: handwritten at bottom of the page is the following:) Community Planning Review Vol. 1, No. 1 (1951) pp. 6-15.