Ottawa Heritage officials lay out heritage conservation districts priorities: three downtown and four more neighbourhoods on deck

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Heritage officials have laid out a game plan to preserve historic neighbourhoods in Ottawa.

The plan includes moving ahead with studies on three heritage conservation districts: the Golden Triangle; Dundonald Park on Somerset Street with surrounding blocks; and a portion of Bank Street comprising a few blocks from Albert Street to Gloucester Street.

While individual buildings are protected under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act, heritage conservation districts fall under Part V. They allow municipalities to recognize districts with a “cohesive sense of time and place.” Designation also protects these neighbourhoods from the “intrusion of incompatible structures.” Ottawa city council has designated 21 heritage conservation districts in the past 40 years, almost all of them in the inner urban core.

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The three areas named in the new plan are high priorities from a heritage conservation perspective, representing a significant concentration of Ottawa’s existing heritage register listings, according to a report to the city’s built heritage committee, which has approved the plan.

City council had previously requested studies for Dundonald Park and the Golden Triangle, but the studies were not completed at the time. The proposed Bank Street heritage conservation district is next to the existing Centretown heritage conservation district.

Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster, a member of the built heritage committee, said she was surprised to learn that the Golden Triangle wasn’t already a heritage conservation district. There needs to be a way to find a balance between intensification and the need to preserve the special character of the neighbourhoods, she said.

“I think heritage conservation districts help us get that right. So I’m pleased with this and I can’t wait to see it,” Troster said.

The studies for the three neighbourhood will consider the character and appearance of buildings, structures and other property features and will make recommendations about the geographic boundaries of the area, as well as the objectives for the designation and the content of the plan. A heritage conservation district plan may require changes to the official plan and municipal by-laws, including zoning bylaws.

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Designations can also be controversial. Alterations to properties located in a heritage conservation district, such as building additions, replacing windows, partial demolitions or porch replacement, require city approval. 

Formal studies typically take two years. They include public consultation and an inventory of all the buildings in the district.

“These are large studies,” said Lesley Collins, the city’s program manager for heritage planning. “They take a significant amount of time and community consultation and participation.”

Looking farther down the road, the city’s plan also calls for feasibility assessments of four other potential districts: Beaverbook in Kanata; Macdonald Gardens and the surrounding blocks in Lowertown East; Wellington Street West and the surrounding blocks in Hintonburg; as well as Island Park Drive from the Kitchi Zibi Mikan parkway to the Central Experimental Farm.

A feasibility assessment involves an overview of the history and character of the district, identifies groups of buildings that support its heritage character and starts a conversation with the community. In the end, the assessment may recommend that the city not move forward with the designation.

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Beaverbook, Kanata’s oldest residential neighbourhood, is an early Canadian example of a fully planned community. City council requested a study on Beaverbrook in 2014, but it was not completed then. Whether Beaverbrook currently qualifies as heritage conservation district is up in the air. Changes to the Ontario Heritage Act mean there’s a new test for designation requiring 25 per cent of properties in the district to meet two or more criteria. Beaverbrook has about 800 properties, so it’s uncertain whether it can meet the 25-per-cent threshold, the report to the heritage committee said.

Wellington Street West is the main commercial corridor in Hintonburg, one of Ottawa’s first inner suburban neighbourhoods. The feasibility assessment is to look at the area from about Garland Street to Carruthers Avenue and may be expanded to include some side streets that connect to Wellington, such as Fairmont Avenue.

The Lowertown Community Association has requested designation for Macdonald Gardens Park and streets surrounding the park. The park, once home to a graveyard for Ottawa’s first settlers, is already designated as an individual property under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act. The surrounding area includes a mix of architectural styles and types from high-rise apartments to detached homes.

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Island Park Drive is managed by the National Capital Commission as a scenic parkway. It features many houses of varying  styles, including some used as embassies or ambassadorial residences.

Earlier this year, the built heritage committee approved a convoluted manoeuvre to protect priority properties from demolition. Bill 23, new provincial legislation aimed at building more homes faster, set a tight timeline for designating  properties under the Ontario Heritage Act with the goal of reducing the number of properties on municipal heritage registers. Ottawa has the province’s largest municipal register with 4,600 properties listed. 

Under Bill 23, properties can remain on a municipal heritage register for only two years. If a municipal council doesn’t issue a notice of intention to designate a property by the end of 2024, it must be removed from the register and can’t be re-listed for five years. 

However, a “new” listing can still be on the register for two years. City heritage officials had planned a de-listing and re-listing strategy, removing almost all of the 4,600 properties from the city register by the end of this year in batches, then re-listing  priority properties. That would buy two more years of time for the priority properties. 

The province has since closed that loophole, Collins said.

”I would expect that we will keep the pace going as much as we can simply because we had over 700 properties that landed in the priority research category,” she said.

“There was no way we were going to get through the even maybe a tenth of them before the end of the year. We will probably try to keep our foot on the gas as much as we can, while obviously allowing for proper information to property owners and opportunities to meet and discuss and try to resolve concerns as the process moves forward.”

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