Several historic downtown properties face uncertain futures after being left out of a pair of city efforts, at least initially, to preserve heritage buildings as the clock ticks down on providing protections.
More than 20 properties on the city’s municipal heritage registry aren’t included in draft plans to establish a Downtown Guelph heritage conservation district. They’re also in an area city staff excluded from consideration when setting priorities for designation under the Ontario Heritage Act (OHA) before properties are automatically removed from the registry under new provincial rules.
The properties in question are along Baker and Yarmouth streets, as well as Suffolk Street East – in close proximity to the planned redevelopment of the Baker Street parking lot, which includes a new central library building, residential apartment towers and open public spaces.
“The map in the RFP (request for proposals) is the historic street map that came out of the Downtown Secondary Plan, but the old downtown is the study area to be looked at,” explained Krista Walkey, the city’s general manager of planning and building services. “They (consultants) will open it up and see where a boundary goes and where it doesn’t.”
The map is intended as a starting point for determining the study’s boundaries, she added.
“Then we’ll go from there so that it will include the old downtown as a whole.”
Asked specifically if the study will look at properties on Yarmouth and Baker streets, Walkey said “yes, it will.”
Ultimately, it’s up to city council to determine the study area.
One of many legislative changes made by the passage of Bill 23 late last year is that properties on municipal heritage registries are automatically removed if they’re not formally designated under the OHA within a two-year period.
As such, the clock started ticking for all properties on Guelph’s heritage registry on Jan. 1 when the legislative changes came into effect. All properties not formally designated under the OHA before the end of next year will be pulled from the registry and can’t be added back on for at least five years.
OHA-designated properties require city approval before alterations, renovations or additions can be done that may impact the property’s heritage attributes, including landscape and natural features.
The only protection afforded properties on municipal registries is that when a demolition application is applied for, the municipal council has an opportunity to review the site and launch the designation process.
The city’s heritage registry currently includes about 1,700 properties, some of which have previously received formal OHA designation.
Earlier this year, members of Heritage Guelph were asked to create their top-10 list for properties on the city’s registry they’d like to see designated. Some city staff also contributed their top-10 list for consideration in the final recommendation to council.
As previously explained by city heritage planner Victoria Nagy, those lists were then compared for similarities and staff added a couple more it considers to be at risk from development pressure, with one added at the request of the owner.
Downtown properties were specifically excluded from that exercise because of a planned Downtown Guelph heritage conservation district study, she said.
In turn, there are no downtown properties on the city’s draft top-10 list which has not been presented to city council for consideration. A final recommendation is expected to go to council late this year or early next, Nagy told GuelphToday.
However, the area described in a request for proposals for that study excludes more than 20 properties that, based on the city’s Official Plan and the designated area for the Downtown Guelph Business Association, are considered to be within the downtown core.
The request for proposals was issued on March 2 and closes Thursday afternoon.
