I am absolutely appalled by…

I am absolutely appalled by these changes to the Ontario Heritage Act. I am fully familiar with the OHA after spending ten years as a member of Heritage Guelph, the Municipal Advisory Committee, after being a tour guide in Guelph for 28 years, after making many delegations to Guelph City Council on heritage issues, after being President of the Guelph and Wellington Branch of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario (ACO) for 13 years and Provincial President of ACO for two years. I think I have more experience with the OHA than anyone in your government and am therefore fully qualified to voice opposition to these changes.

The OHA is designed to protect properties and landscapes deemed of cultural heritage value to the municipality. That is its prime and unique purpose. Designations are entirely separate and apart from your stated purpose in Bill 108: streamlining approvals to support the Housing Supply Action Plan and to attract more investment to Ontario. Heritage designations are important to the uniqueness of a community and reflect its values on what is important. The question of housing supply is entirely separate and apart from the issue of heritage value. I am shocked that your government would see any connection at all. If you care about housing supply, then you should invest in making housing supply more available to the people of Ontario rather than allowing developers to more easily get rid of our precious and irreplaceable heritage.

Regarding the changes to the appeal process by substituting the OMB rules for the Conservation Review Board: In my experience with OMB hearings (since you have stopped the new LPAT before it even started, we have no experience with this improved appeal process for citizen groups). The OMB process is an outdated and entirely unfair system and I am also shocked that you would reintroduce it. It is too unwieldy, too expensive for concerned citizen and neighbourhood groups and too unbalanced with developer-friendly judges. The members of the CRB are experienced in and knowledgeable about heritage law and heritage issues and give both sides an equal and fair hearing. I have been involved in several CRB appeals and have found their judges to be very fair and thoughtful. Developers are on an equal footing with citizens, property owners and municipal officials. It all works well. There is absolutely NO reason to disband the CRB because it already provers a "consistent and binding appeals process" so you do not need to change it to the ponderous, burdensome and unfair OMB system.

I trust that you will hold more in-depth discussions with people who have experience with and knowledge of the Ontario Heritage Act. To make these dangerous and thoughtless changes at the whim of developers who care more for profit than they do about the values of their community is both offensive and ignorant of the wishes of the People you purport to represent.

Remove these proposed changes from Bill 108. Better yet, discard all of Bill 108, an undemocratic and misguided piece of legislation that will destroy the Ontario we love.

If you want to review the OHA, you need to call a complete review with ALL interested and knowledgeable parties to give a fair hearing and suggest changes. Development pressures are a totally different topic that is not all related to heritage values, so you need to keep them separate.

I am also shocked and offended by the comment "without impeding compatible development". Designations are and should be decided by the local community based on the Reg /069 criteria, NOT on whether the property or landscape impedes development. heritage designation has always increased property values and has never been an impediment to thoughtful growth. We are do not want our cities to be "the geography of nowhere" places, all with identical subdivisions, Boston pizzas, banks on four corners and WalMarts. We want local treasures with local stories to make our communities unique.
The regulations of the present OHA are already clearly laid out to guide municipal government decision making and no changes are needed. The designation by-laws are already clearly thought out and need no regulatory authority to oversee them. That would remove local control over the designation process.
Regarding establishing a 60 or 90 day timeline: often research for designation takes some time and budget money. Will you provide to municipalities additional funding to do the necessary indepath research??