We have now completed our first piece of homework: In the past several weeks, we have spoken with every municipality in Ontario that currently has one or more approved designated heritage districts – residential or commercial.

Here’s an idea of the scope of who we talked to:

• There are 27 municipalities with designated heritage districts
• These municipalities represent a total of 73 districts (including 10,250 properties)
• 55 districts (75%) are primarily for residential purposes while the remainder (18) are commercial or institutional
• There are over 8,000 properties in the residential districts

You can go through this website to see the questions we asked of every municipality and a summary of their responses.

In addition to the municipalities, we have also spoken to the Ontario Ministry of Culture (responsible for heritage conservation) and our own insurance broker. We have deliberately not spoken with anyone involved in Bowmanville’s heritage process (the consultants or municipal staff) to eliminate any local bias.

We now believe we can form our own opinion based on the real experience of other districts and through a better understanding of the designation process and its results. We also realize that our neighbourhood has a long way to go before designation could be approved and that proper education about the issues will be critical as the process moves forward.

Our community has not yet had the opportunity of an objective education process. We know there is a high level of interest in this topic and hope that you will take the time to go through this website as a simple starting point to learning more about heritage designation. In addition to this website, we will be pursuing other opportunities in an effort to have meaningful and objective information delivered to the neighbourhood.

We’d be happy to take your comments and feedback at bowmanvilleheritage@sympatico.ca.