By Liz MacKenzie
It takes a good speaker to lift you out of complacency, push your buttons on a topic you thought you understood and make you sit up and listen, especially when it’s about Lowertown heritage, which some bemoan, some berate and some cherish.
But two speakers at the January meeting of the Lowertown Community Association (LCA) hit some nerves. They were part of a panel on heritage, organized by Andrew Waldron, Chair of the Heritage and Culture Committee of the LCA.
Leslie Maitland, a past president of Heritage Ottawa, talked about the need for change to the planners’ “bible”, namely The Provincial Policy Statement (PPS). It is quoted in planning arguments bythose who support heritage and those who don’t[A1] . Statements are often taken out of context, and it has never been a friend to heritage advocates. Developers are adept at finding statements to support their arguments, especially around intensification. Using the PPS, they could find an argument to demolish the Parliament Buildings.
The PPS is issued under the Provincial Planning Act and all decisions by municipalities affecting land use planning matters “shall be consistent with” it.
However, Leslie pointed out that, having been written in 1996, amended in 1997, and with revisions in 2005 and 2015, it doesn’t reflect today’s realities. She noted that the old policies are way behind current demands for conservation of building materials, energy efficiency, affordable housing and protection of cultural and heritage assets.
The PPS affects every planning decision by every municipality in Ontario, and we know that progressive changes are not likely to come from our present provincial government. We are at the mercy of our city councillors to support compelling arguments which will move us into the 21st century reality of land planning.
Thanks Leslie: I had never really put that together!
The second speaker, Susan Peterson, Rockcliffe Park Community Heritage Committee Outreach Chair, made her strongest points responding to City Heritage Planner, Ashley Kotarba’s announcement that our Heritage Conservation Districts (HCDs) will be reviewed in 2020 and rewritten as bylaws. We have been asking for this for years because our present HCDs (Byward Market and Lowertown West) are governed by a series of guidelines from the early 1990s,making them second-class citizens in any legal contest.
Susan was a strong player in a similar exercise for Rockcliffe Park Village, resulting in a plan in 2016.
But the work! The community had to write heritage reviews of all the buildings in the village. Hours were spent getting the wording of the bylaw strong enough to provide protection from a rash of applications for new monster houses in the Village. However, the community ended up with a document that seemed to serve their purpose, making it definitely worth the effort. And the result? The bylaw was immediately appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board, and development after development contravening the bylaw has been approved with shovels in the ground.
She warned us to be prepared for a lot of work: we need dedicated volunteers, and we need, above all, to be proactive, , clear and strong. She warned us to beware of “weasel words”; for instance to never use “may” and always use “must” etc., and to avoid any word that is vague or that could misinterpreted. And we have to be prepared to work if we want the new bylaw to protect our heritage district.
Lowertown’s new HCD documents will eventually go to public consultation, and it is naive not to expect pushback from some landowners. We need all the help we can get, during the study phase, the consultations and the approvals.
Susan closed with a shout out for a recent report by Julian Smith, Canada’s foremost heritage architect, educator and scholar. It is based on experiences of Ottawa heritage advocates called Ottawa’s Heritage Conservation Districts at Risk. (heritageottawa.org/sites/default/files/smith_report.pdf). It’s a good read and a realistic summary of the difficult issues ahead.
[A1]Is that what is meant?