Here’s what we asked the municipalities about their designated heritage districts and the responses they provided:
1. Are paint colours included in your district’s guidelines?
2. How strictly are your guidelines regulated?
3. Did you experience opposition to designation prior to it being approved for your district?
4. If you had any opposition, has it subsided since designation was approved?
5. Have you ever had a fine or charge laid against a property owner for doing something they should not have in the district?
6. How are non-heritage or infill properties handled within the district?
7. On average, how long does it take to have an alteration approved?
8. Do you have full-time staff to handle heritage responsibilities in your municipality?
1. Are paint colours included in your district’s guidelines?
- 59 districts (81% of total) do not include paint colours in guidelines
- 9 residential districts (17% of total residential) include paint colours – Cobourg, Markham, Oakville
- Paint colour guidelines are typically very flexible and are primarily intended to reduce the use of ‘bad’ colours – municipalities typically provide a pallet of available historical colours from paint manufacturers like Benjamin Moore who offers 175 historical colours
2. How strictly are your guidelines regulated?
- Most districts require a ‘heritage permit’ for alterations
- Some districts only require a heritage permit for alterations that would require a building permit
- Permit approval varies drastically between municipalities:
- Most are reviewed and approved by the LACAC/heritage committee
- Some can receive approval through municipal staff
- Council approves permits in just over half of the districts and in almost every case simply rubber stamp the recommendation of the LACAC/heritage committee or municipal staff
- Most municipalities consider their regulating to be flexible
- There are a limited number of districts who admit to being ‘strict’ and not coincidentally, these are some of the premiere heritage communities in Ontario and also have commercial use in the area – Cobourg, Markham, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Oakville
3. Did you experience opposition to designation prior to it being approved for your district?
- 3 municipalities could claim that they did not experience any opposition to the designated district – the rest had opposition
- Most communities could identify with the opposition we are currently experiencing in Bowmanville – they experienced many of the same issues that have been raised here
- Rarely is designation as strongly opposed as it currently is in Bowmanville
- In all municipalities, an education phase was conducted by municipal staff early in the discussion of designation that incorporated public sessions and information pieces – a phase that has not occurred in Bowmanville
4. If you had any opposition, has it subsided since designation was approved?
- 3 municipalities (commercial districts?) say they continue to experience any degree of opposition from property owners in their designated districts – typically complaints are about having to go through the permit approval process
- Once designation is in place, property owners realize how “painless” it is
- The experience from one district often creates momentum for the development of other districts within the same municipality – 14 municipalities now have more than one designated district and many are working toward the designation of new districts or expansion of current ones
- Toronto’s heritage staff say they are now having a hard time keeping up with the requests for new districts
- Some smaller municipalities have put long-term plans in place to introduce new district studies on an annual basis
5. Have you ever had a fine or charge laid against a property owner for doing something they should not have in the district?
- Fines are essentially nonexistent for the 73 current heritage districts – the current tally is:
- One fine has been laid (Markham)
- One charge is in the process of being laid (Markham)
- Three incidents where fines were considered but not laid
- While municipalities recognize penalties are necessary in dealing with the most extreme problems, they do not believe they are the best way to deal with the community or property owners – better results can be achieved by working issues out with the property owner
6. How are non-heritage or infill properties handled within the district?
- 5 residential districts (7%) handle infill properties the same as heritage homes
- Most districts rank or tier the properties based on their heritage values and apply different sets of guidelines to each group
- In other municipalities, while the guidelines may be the same for all properties on paper, they receive different consideration through the approval process with the LACAC/heritage committee
- In some municipalities, infill properties do not go through the heritage permit process for alteration changes at all
7. On average, how long does it take to have an alteration approved?
- This is difficult to get a single answer for because there is such a huge range in alterations
- Municipalities understand that waiting on approval can be a major annoyance to property owners
- Many communities can simply have their alteration requests approved by municipal staff in the matter of minutes
- On average, most approvals would take 2-3 weeks
- Most LACACs/heritage committees meet regularly to reduce waiting and are often assembled on short notice to quickly approve a request for a property owner
8. Do you have full-time staff to handle heritage responsibilities in your municipality?
- 11 municipalities with heritage districts have full-time staff dedicated to dealing with heritage in their community
- Others have planning or building staff that looks after this area