Heritage Conservation Districts and Bill 23 - Part One

The immediate benefit of Heritage Conservation District (HCD) designation is a planning process that respects a community’s history and identity. District designation is one of the best ways to ensure that this identity is conserved. The adoption of a HCD plan as part of the designation process ensures that the community’s heritage conservation objectives and stewardship will be respected during the decision-making process.¹

Let’s look more closely at these changes. Today we’ll start with (b) and the question of amending and repealing HCDs.

The sweeping changes to the OHA in 2005 included major changes to district designation. Part V was amended to, among other things, introduce a requirement for new districts to have a HCD plan — until then a plan was considered a best practice and was not obligatory. The Act set out in detail the required contents of the plan as well as the process, including public engagement, to be followed to put one in place.

A HCD plan adopted in this way has considerable clout. Unlike old plans adopted previously (pre-2005), whose policies and guidelines are advisory only, the new plans included mandatory policies and guidelines that even, in the event of a conflict, would take precedence over other municipal by-laws including zoning by-laws. With such robust plans district designation became a much stronger planning mechanism for recognizing and conserving an area’s heritage character and managing its changes and development.

In the run-up to the 2005 changes — and after! — there was understandable concern about what would happen to existing district designations and their “old” plans. As with Part IV designations, the 2005 changes left district designations in place while strengthening their demolition controls through changes to the demolition decision-making process. The old district plans were also not touched — meaning they continued to have whatever (advisory) value they previously had.

To prod the “updating” of old plans and head off the potentially risky repeal of existing districts while this was done, the Act specifically provided for municipalities adopting new plans for these districts.³ Over the last 18 years many municipalities have availed themselves of this option.

But because the focus in 2005 was on the then-new plans — and the updating of old ones — little attention was given to the longer-term future of the new plans that would be adopted post-2005 and the need for their eventual updating and improvement.

Any plan by definition will need adjustments as time passes to remove outdated approaches and address new circumstances and emerging needs. New municipal Official Plans, for instance, are to be updated after 10 years and every five years after that.

While, like other municipal by-laws, HCD by-laws can theoretically be amended and repealed, there are no specific provisions in the OHA about amendment or repeal. Because district designations and plans are complicated and often take years to develop and get in place, there is obvious reluctance to “start over” with new districts and plans replacing the old, as well as to “open up” plans that may need only relatively minor modification.

At this point a sizeable number of HCD plans in Ontario are 10 years old or older — and — correct me if I’m wrong — none have been “updated”, outside of some of the pre-2005 plans.⁴