Kitchener set to ask province for more time on heritage review

The City of Kitchener will ask the province to extend a looming deadline to review dozens of historic properties for potential designation.

A motion introduced at council this week by Coun. Debbie Chapman passed, asking the province for five more years as municipalities across Ontario race to review heritage properties.

Under provincial Bill 23, or the More Homes Built Faster Act, municipalities currently have just a few more months — until Jan. 1, 2025 — to designate any property that’s listed on a municipal heritage register.

If a property isn’t designated under the Ontario Heritage Act by that deadline, it must be removed from the register and can’t be relisted for five years. Municipalities will face limitations if they want to designate properties that aren’t already listed.

Buildings listed, but not designated, on a register are recognized as having cultural heritage value but don’t have the same protections offered to designated properties.

City heritage planners, members of the Heritage Kitchener committee and other volunteers from groups like Architectural Conservancy

Ontario have been busy in recent months as they prioritize and review buildings and recommend some to council for designation.

Chapman, a Heritage Kitchener member, said when the review began, the city had 231 listed properties on the register; about 22 of those have now been designated, 16 are in process, and 15 have been reviewed without action being taken. That still leaves nearly 180 properties to review.

Other municipalities have also asked for a five-year extension to 2030, Chapman said.

Manager of development review Garett Stevenson said they’d hoped to review 80 priority properties by the 2025 deadline.

“This added time would give us additional opportunity” to review the rest of the listed properties, he said.

“It was a large body of work that the committee did, and it’s a dedicated group of citizens that work to make sure this gets done,” said Coun. Christine Michaud, who also sits on Heritage Kitchener.

“It would be a shame if we didn’t continue this to do the best we could.”