CPTED Design Recommendations

Natural Surveillance/Visual Connection

• Provide an opportunity for people engaged in normal
everyday activity to observe the space around them. Place
activities where individuals engage in those activities so they
become part of the natural surveillance system without
interruption to their activity.

• Provide a good “visual connection” between residential
and/or commercial units and public environments such as
streets, common areas, parks, sidewalks, parking areas and
alleys. Place actively used rooms such as kitchens,
living/family room and lobbies to allow for good viewing of
parking, streets and/or common areas. Managers, attendants
and security personnel should have extensive views of these
areas.

• Provide for the ability to see into a room or space prior to
entering.

• Take advantage of mixed use if it exists and provide good
“visual connection” between uses. This may enable natural
surveillance during the day and evening, (i.e., a commercial
zone that becomes vacant in the evening or a residential zone
that is uninhabited during the day).

Natural Access Control/Spatial Definition

• Provide clear well-lit paths from the street to the development
through all parking and landscape areas, and within the
development to building entries.

• Avoid indistinct walkways and entries where occupants and
guests may become “lost or disoriented” or must search for
the correct entry or unit.

• Provide adequate lighting, width of path, definition of path
and ability to see a destination.

• Provide obvious physical security techniques such as locks,
lights, walls, gates and security signs.