Why would one want to…

Why would one want to implement profound changes to the heritage act without public hearings and only seek public comment once this flawed legislation has been drafted? This issue was not fully presented or debated in the election this past spring and the lack of consultation or vetting of this issue is fundamentally anti democratic. This legislation should be withdrawn & and all party committee of the Legislature should hold public hearings to propose new legislation.

The proposed changes fly in the face of the direction of enhanced heritage protection that have been developed over the years in Ontario, Canada & the western world. Protections of heritage structures has been an uphill battle for communities in the province for many years prior to the last changes to the heritage act & these proposed changes only make things worse. For example the replacement of the function of the Conservation Review Board with the non-expert Ontario Land Tribunal is but one example. Heritage preservation as an encumbrance to development is a lie that is only fed by those who lack a understanding of the many reasons that heritage preservation is important.

Were this a serious effort to improve access to the construction of new housing vis a vis the Heritage act, a place to start would have been to address the issue of demolition by neglect. Demolition by neglect has removed large numbers of housing, many of them heritage resources from the housing inventory of the province over the years as buildings fall into disrepair and ultimately become a safety hazard and often the target of arsonists. The province developing a policy that would addressed demolition by neglect, would rapidly put many homes back into the housing inventory. Not addressing this item alone, proves the lie that this proposed legislation is about housing.

The premise that Designation & Heritage Registers are somehow delaying construction of housing is frankly another lie. Several examples in our community abound where demolition of properties on the Heritage Register have occurred and the property site sits vacant months after demolition. The result of these demolitions, (under the current rules) means no new homes being built, and formerly occupied homes being torn down. If some of these changes are made, demolition permits will essentially become a right, and the trend described will become a much more common practice.

Reading the proposed changes, it is clear to the reader that making heritage preservation more difficult is the goal of these proposed changes. Heritage conservation trends, policies, and registers have been developed by communities by the popular will with approval across the province over decades. The proposal to essentially dissolve Heritage registers in two years flies in the face of the democratic popular will of communities across the province. As not every property on a Heritage Register is a number one priority & municipal heritage budgets are finite, Heritage Registers are an important tool that allows for communities to evaluate a property based on development pressures. Presently, Proscribed Events require municipalities to work with the property owner and in the case of a demolition application, to have a property on a register jump the queue to evaluate if the property is worthy of designation or not. The proposed changes will essentially do away with this ability. This one change will further negatively impact municipal heritage budgets as resources will have to be focused on ramping up work on Heritage Registries over the next two years rather than already partially completed goals and disrupting years long work plans. This will result in further stressing available resources. For these & other reasons, changes to Heritage registers should be removed from this proposed legislation.

Increasing the threshold for designation is an exercise in foolishness. Most properties that have a NOID publish often meet two or more criteria but there are always going to be outliers. Having flexibility on this issue is a matter that allows for some properties to be designation based on one criteria that a community agrees merits designation. Increasing the threshold for designation should be removed from this proposal as it removes this flexibility.

One must ask why new regulations for the development of HCD’s is required. HCD’s are already a long and costly process, and are not undertaken without community consultation, and underlying heritage elements being present. Adding more regulations to the HCD process is yet another example of increasing costs to municipalities and so the reference to change the rules for HCD’s should be removed.

In conclusion, this legislation seems designed not to allow for consideration by the many impacted, nor were the the more retrograde elements of this legislation proposed during the past Spring's election. In the interest of actually achieving the stated goal of building of more housing stock, there should be a pause and a full public debate be implemented prior to any changes being considered in new legislation.