It’s been something heritage aficionados have been requesting for decades, and it’s a step closer to becoming a reality.
On Monday, council directed staff to proceed with the Queen’s Park neighbourhood heritage conservation implementation plan. A working group has outlined its top priorities for council’s consideration: the creation of a heritage conservation area, a photographic inventory of heritage buildings and landscape features in the neighbourhood and the creation of design guidelines based on existing 1999 guidelines and the photographic inventory to be completed.
Council also directed staff to examine the feasibility of establishing a “heritage control period” for the neighbourhood for one year, which could restrict people from altering a building’s exterior, moving a building or structurally changing a building. The working group felt this would give council the ability to deny demolition and unsympathetic alterations to buildings in the neighbourhood, while consultation for the heritage conservation area takes place.
Through the years, many heritage supporters have called on the city to create a heritage conservation area in Queen’s Park. A staff report states that a heritage conservation area “would essentially place a layer of heritage protection” over all properties within the area, impose minimum maintenance standards to the properties, and require all building permit applications (including new builds, renovations and demolitions) and subdivision applications to have a heritage alteration permit.
“We have tried these conservation areas in the past in the city and they haven’t been successful. I think the one difference between this process and the past processes is this one has really been bottom up and driven by the community, whereas in the past it’s been more top-down driven by the city,” said Mayor Jonathan Cote about the working group that has worked on the issue for nearly two years. “I am optimistic we are going to have a more successful result, given that it’s been community driven.”
Work done as part of a heritage conservation area will be embedded in the city’s official community plan.
The city will hire several people with heritage expertise to work on the project. The $120,000 for the work will come out of the development service’s department’s consultant budget.
