On behalf of Canada’s four…

On behalf of Canada’s four national heritage conservation NGOs – Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals, Indigenous Heritage Circle, ICOMOS Canada, and National Trust for Canada – we would like to express our grave concerns about the potentially devastating impacts the proposed changes to the Ontario Heritage Act in Bill 23 More Homes Built Faster Act will have on the province’s irreplaceable cultural heritage, and to affirm the detailed concerns raised by our provincial counterparts, including: Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, Community Heritage Ontario, Ontario Archaeological Association, Ontario Association of Heritage Professionals, Ontario Business Improvement Area Association, Ontario Historical Society, and Shared Path Consultation Initiative.

While we welcome the Ontario government’s commitment to addressing the current housing crisis and the need for affordable, inclusive, and safe housing, and recognize the need to review and revise the existing heritage system, the proposed Bill 23 severely undercuts heritage identification and protection mechanisms and will have unintended consequences that will result in significant negative outcomes as well as greater property development delays and confusion. Moreover, substantial evidence from across Ontario shows that heritage conservation and housing development have been proven to be mutually beneficial and not in opposition to each other as the proposed Bill (and the Report of the Ontario Housing Affordable Task Force that proceeded it) would seem to suggest.

Here are our key concerns, underscoring those already identified by our provincial heritage counterparts:

• The natural environment and cultural heritage of the traditional territories of Indigenous communities will be adversely impacted by proposed measures in Bill 23. A lack of consultation and accommodation of the concerns of Indigenous communities risks violating their Inherent and Treaty Rights. Indigenous organizations have called on the Ontario government to pause their efforts on Bill 23 until consultation with First Nations, as rightsholders and treaty partners, has been adequately conducted.

• The current bill does not address the inherent systemic barriers to building reuse which if removed would both create housing faster and eliminate the additional carbon footprint associated with new construction. Building code requirements/limitations, a lack of skilled trades, and tax system distortions currently impede the adaptive reuse of Ontario’s existing buildings.

• Increasing the threshold for listing and designation of heritage properties under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act will make it much more difficult to address reconciliation as well as issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion in the protection of cultural heritage resources in Ontario.

• Bill amendments to the Ontario Heritage Act would mean that non-designated properties currently included (“listed”) on a municipal register would have to be removed if municipal council does not issue a notice of intention to designate within two years of the Act coming into force. This will greatly reduce the opportunity for communities to identify places of heritage significance, and dramatically increase the likelihood of their loss. Robust heritage resources inventories serve as a basic building block of any local /provincial historic preservation program and are an internationally recognized best practice.

Our national heritage conservation organizations support intensification, including well-designed and planned infill as well as the conversion and rehabilitation of existing buildings as housing. We discourage any measures that would incentivize the demolition of existing buildings and impact both the environment and affordability. We would support tools that encourage subdivision of single unit homes into multi-family buildings and give credits for the reuse of existing buildings and materials or incorporating cultural heritage resources into new developments.

Given the magnitude of the changes to the Ontario Heritage Act proposed in Bill 23, consultation with heritage organizations, such as us and our provincial counterparts, is necessary. We urge you to undertake further review of the implications of the amendments prior to proclamation. We welcome the opportunity to share our technical expertise related to the Ontario Heritage Act amendments and proposed changes to the prescribed criteria for evaluating cultural heritage value or interest.

Yours sincerely,

Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals
Indigenous Heritage Circle
ICOMOS Canada
National Trust for Canada