Letter to Premier Ford on Listed Heritage Properties

BRANCH: Provincial Office

TYPE: Member Documents

DATE: February 12, 2024

AUTHOR: ACO

Premier Ford,

Re: Looming expiry date for protection of heritage properties listed under the Ontario Heritage Act

We are writing to express our concerns with a key amendment to the Ontario Heritage Act; which your government passed in 2022. Under it, any heritage property listed on a municipal register as of December 31, 2022 shall be removed from the register on January 1, 2025, unless that council has given notice of its intention to designate the property under the Act. Properties that lose listing status cannot be re-listed for another five years.

This change affects some 36,000 listed heritage properties, according to the Ministry of Citizenship and Multiculturalism, in over 100 municipalities across the province. These properties have only limited, short- term (60 day) protection. As ACO warned in December 2022, forcing municipalities to designate all listed properties within two years or drop them from the register was draconian and totally unrealistic. With the expiry date now less than one year away, municipalities, large and small, are scrambling to review their registers and prioritize properties for designation or other protection. The staff/financial cost in research alone is enormous.

Automatically removing listed properties from the registry in less than eleven months will encourage demolition of existing and affordable housing alternatives at a time when we need them the most.

ACO is asking that Subsection 27(16) of the Ontario Heritage Act be amended in the spring session of the Legislature, to extend the deadline in the Act for five years, from January 1, 2025 to January 1, 2030. This early certainty of an additional five years for implementation would give municipalities the opportunity to better plan, resource and undertake this complex exercise. The 2030 timeline would help municipalities ensure that properties are not ‘“thrown off the list” prematurely and without input from property owners.

ACO believes that property owners should not be forced to choose between designation and nothing at all to recognize the heritage significance of their property. However, this is the choice your government has forced on them. At the very least, owners and municipalities should be given more time to make this choice, and given reasonable notice of this extension.

Diane Chin
President, ACO