With the hiring of a contractor as a Heritage Planner we are starting to make some progress on protecting our cultural heritage by listing properties on the Heritage Register.  But from the brief debate at Council 5/28 it is evident that there are challenges ahead as some argue that “sweat equity” trumps Municipality responsibility to protect our heritage.

On the positive side:  we are getting our data base in order—we have removed about 90 properties from the inventory.  About 75 of the 90 have now been listed on the Register; a couple have been simply removed from the inventory as it was determined that they do not have cultural value and a couple have been deferred for further assessment.  End result is that we now have in total about 63 Listed Properties and 30 Designated Properties.

(A quick reminder of definitions:   an owner of Listed property shall not demolish or remove the building unless the owner gives the Township Council at least 60 days written notice of intent to do so.  During the 60 days the Township can explore possible options and alternatives with the owner.  A Designated Property is protected by a bylaw.  The inventory is simply a list.)

In addition, in parallel to the effort to consider properties for inclusion on the Register as listed , our Heritage Co-ordinator is developing guidelines for property owners to understand how much “renovation/decoration liberty” there is for properties listed and/or designated.  Completing this is critical as there is considerable misunderstanding about the implications of having a property listed or designated.  And once completed the Co-coordinator will commence process of designation of some properties, with priority on those for which designation has been requested by the owners.

As I mentioned at the outset there was brief debate at last Council.  It exposed clearly that there is not unanimity on the Council or in the public about Heritage and the responsibility of a Municipality to protect it.  There are some who argue that by virtue of a property owner’s “sweat equity” a Municipality has no right to interfere with their property rights by listing or designating a property.

Protecting Heritage is important as it enhances a sense of identity/place; it helps to understand a community’s cultural heritage and history.  It facilitates creation and maintenance of a diverse built environment.  A property owner’s “sweat equity” does not give a property owner to do what they will on their property.

I believe it is accepted that a property owner cannot build any kind of building of any size anywhere on their property.  It is also accepted that a property owner has stewardship responsibilities regarding watercourses traversing their landscape of which the beneficiary MAY be the property owner but is certainly to the benefit of those downstream and to the greater community, both current and in future.  And, as been frequently hi-lighted recently in the media a property owner by virtue of their “sweat equity” cannot choose to bring fill from anywhere of any quality and dump it anywhere; as is the case of the water course stewardship, this restriction may benefit the property owner but it is clearly driven by need to be responsible and careful for the benefit of others.

The cultural heritage and history of King does not belong to any single person; the Municipality has a responsibility to protect it just as it does other features.  If we are going to make real progress on this front we need to get beyond this basic debate and start working on a strategy to ensure that the right properties are designated, that heritage buildings are being effectively re-purposed;  to encourage this King will need to become an enabler, including offering incentives.