My concern with these…

My concern with these proposed changes is particularly where they affect natural heritage features that might also be classified as cultural heritage features. Natural heritage features that remain on the Ontario landscape are what sustain our health and well-being. We need to protect these and continue to benefit from the ecological services they provide, including clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, carbon storage and sequestration to mitigate climate change, flood water absorption during extreme weather events (climate adaptation).

Repurposing older buildings is also a climate-friendly approach. When they are well-built, they can be converted to a new application with much fewer wasted resources than knocking them down and rebuilding a newer and not necessarily better building.