City scrambling to identify, protect heritage buildings
New provincial law could leave many properties vulnerable to demolition
Windsor is up against the clock to shield some of its most historic buildings from the threat of demolition before existing protections vanish under new provincial legislation. Less than nine months remain before hundreds of properties currently “listed” on Windsor's heritage registry lose their status. While city planners continue efforts to give more protective heritage “designation” to as many properties as possible — a lengthy and resource-intensive process — that work is guaranteed to continue past a dreaded deadline when those properties become prey to wrecking balls.
“This is a huge undertaking,” said Jim Morrison, chair of council's heritage committee, following a meeting this week.
“It is an issue that we'll continue to look at throughout the year, because at the end of the year, unless the provincial government changes and gives us an extension, we're going to have some properties that are vulnerable.”
Nearly 900 Windsor properties are merely “listed” on the city's heritage register and will become vulnerable to demolition come 2025, when changes to the Ontario Heritage Act from Bill 23 — the More Homes Built Faster Act — take effect next year.
Only properties with the more protective heritage “designation” will remain safe.
Morrison said he hopes the province reconsiders the deadline it imposed on municipalities that are now “scrambling ” to reassess hundreds — and in some cases thousands — of heritage properties in a short time frame. So far, the city's requests for a deadline extension haven't made a difference.
“We continue to lobby and advocate at every possible channel for an extension to that date,” Jelena Payne, city commissioner of economic development and innovation, told the heritage committee on Monday.
“The City of Windsor is not the only municipality who is in this situation where we are prioritizing and working very hard to tackle this list. Every other municipality across the province is in the same boat. We are all collectively advocating for an extension of that deadline.”
Michael Cooke, city manager of planning policy, said the city hasn't “heard anything positive” from the province regarding an extension.
Heritage planner Kristina Tang told the committee that giving heritage “designation” to every single “listed” property — there are 844 of them — isn't feasible, and that “not every one of them actually merits a designation or meets the provincial criteria for designation.”
Instead, city staff are using several strategies to identify properties worthy of designation and protect them strategically as the provincial deadline looms.
Last summer, council approved plans endorsed by the heritage committee to designate properties with the “strongest” cultural heritage value; batch-designating city-owned heritage properties; and designating roughly 300 Walkerville properties simultaneously under a new heritage conservation district.
The city is also eyeing protections through demolition control bylaws in targeted areas, such as Victoria Avenue, to temporarily protect heritage properties.
Windsor staff usually designate only a few listed heritage properties each year, and they typically do so at the request of the property owner. The process requires multiple site visits, extensive research into the property's history, and council support — work that takes time to complete.
Council first adopted the heritage register in 2007. The mechanism has allowed Windsor to list for protection and preservation 1,272 properties of which 388 are designated heritage properties.
The remaining 884 are listed, meaning council at some point believed they are of cultural value, though Tang said not all of them warrant the highest level of protection.
A Walkerville Heritage District Study will likely wrap up this summer, Tang said. Sweeping heritage designation for the neighbourhood — bound generally by Lincoln Road, Ottawa Street, Walker Road, and the Detroit River — could protect approximately 300 properties listed on Windsor's heritage register.
The city already has a couple of heritage conservation districts: Old Sandwich and the 200 block of Prado Place in Riverside.
Once the review of Walkerville is complete, more staff will be available to review properties with strong cultural heritage value in other areas, Tang said.
Economic development commissioner Payne said the city will continue to identify properties for designation after listed properties have been erased from the heritage register in January.
“That process will not stop at the end of this year,” Payne said.
At the request of Ward 9 Coun. Kieran Mckenzie, staff will look into creating a bylaw aimed at protecting all city heritage assets in one fell swoop beyond 2025.
Other cities are grappling with the impending threat to heritage properties. Last month, the City of Ottawa's built heritage committee approved a convoluted manoeuvre to protect heritage-listed properties in the face of Bill 23.
If council doesn't issue notice of an intention to designate a property by the end of 2024, the property must be removed from the register and it can't be re-listed for five years.
But “new” listings can be on the register for two years — a permission Ottawa will take advantage of by will delisting and relisting its heritage properties. The move will give heritage planners in the nation's capital extra time to designate.
Ottawa's plan would see its 4,600 heritage properties delisted in batches by the end of the year. About 700 of those have already been identified as candidates for designation.
Ottawa would then maintain an interim register of all 4,600 properties so that historical information about them remains available to the public.