The pressure is on for Niagara-on-the-Lake and dozens of communities across Ontario, as they’re half a year away from a deadline that’ll see a swath of historical properties get dropped from their municipal heritage lists — clearing the way for them to be redeveloped or demolished.
Now, the Town of NOTL is asking the Ontario government to give it three more years to finish designating as many heritage properties as it can before it’s too late.
Council voted on Tuesday to ask the province to extend the Jan. 1, 2027 deadline for issuing notices of intention to designate for properties on the heritage register, asking it to consider a new deadline of 2030.
Originally, the deadline decided on in 2022 was the start of 2025, but the province agreed to delay it.
According to the approved motion, since the province made changes to its Heritage Act in November 2022, starting the countdown for this deadline, the town’s heritage staff has designated 21 properties under Part IV of the act.
It has 178 properties left on the heritage register to designate. In addition, at the start of the year, the town expanded its Queen-Picton heritage district, which will mean efforts to designate 533 properties in that area, located in Old Town, under the Heritage Act.
According to the town’s website, properties with Part IV designation cannot be altered without council’s consent.
Coun. Erwin Wiens, who introduced the motion, told council it’s important for the town to get in touch with the province, including the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, and plead its case.
“Our registry is one of the largest in the province, if not the largest,” Coun. Erwin Wiens told council. “Many municipalities may only have nine or 10 homes on their registry and they’re struggling to get those done, because it does take months to do each one.”
Coun. Tim Balasiuk, a member of the municipal heritage committee, voiced his support for extending the deadline, alluding to challenge that’s cropped up in the process: pushback from some who live in heritage homes and don’t want to see their homes designated for a variety of reasons.
In two separate cases concerning historical homes on Delater Street, the homeowners told the town that their insurance companies told them they would significantly hike their premiums once their homes were designated. In response, council voted to freeze the designation of their homes in November last year.
“It’s not an easy task to try to get people to designate,” Balasiuk said.
Regardless, he said, securing proper protection for these homes is critical, adding some heritage homes should be designated by force.
“There are no other municipalities in Ontario that have these assets,” he said. “As the first capital of Upper Canada, we need to do this.”
Alongside forwarding their ask to all the relevant provincial offices, the town will make a big push for a deadline extension at the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference, slated for Aug. 16 to 19, where NOTL’s councillors and staff will have a chance to sit down and talk to provincial government representatives about the issue.
