Downtown Heritage Conservation District Study

1. What is a Heritage Conservation District?

A Heritage Conservation District (HCD) is an area with cultural heritage significance designated under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act (OHA) that may include:

• Buildings or structures
• Designed or natural landscapes (like streets, natural features, parks, etc.)
• Important views and vistas 

Heritage Conservation Districts share a similar aesthetic, history, use, or socio-cultural context. This is reflected by:

• A sense of visual coherence that conveys a distinct sense of time and place 
• A distinct character that makes the district distinguishable from its neighbouring areas
• A physical framework composed of natural features like watercourses or landforms and built forms like street patterns, pathways or landmarks

In St. Catharines, most of our heritage properties are in one of the city’s five HCDs. These include Port Dalhousie; the Port Dalhousie Commercial Core and Harbour Area; Yates Street; Queen Street; and Power Glen. You can click here to learn more about the City’s existing HCDs. 

2. What is the Ontario Heritage Act?

The Ontario Heritage Act (OHA) is the provincial legislation that governs the protection of cultural heritage resources in Ontario. The OHA allows municipalities and the province to designate individual properties or heritage conservation districts. 

The OHA was amended in 2023 under the More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022 (Bill 23) with regulatory changes to Ontario Regulation (O. Reg) 9/06 and O. Reg 385/21. The changes to O. Reg 9/06 include two items specific to HCDs:

1. New rules about how the criteria for determining cultural heritage value or interest (CHVI) is applied to district designations. As of January 2023, at least 25 per cent of properties within a heritage conservation district must contribute to the cultural heritage value of the district. 
2. New rules for amending and repealing heritage conservation district plans, currently under development

 3. Why is the City pursuing an HCD study at this time?  

When the Ontario Government passed Bill 23 in 2022, a number of changes were made to the Ontario Heritage Act that affected how municipalities can protect heritage buildings. 

One of the most impactful changes is to properties on Heritage Registers. Properties on a Heritage Register were only protected from demolition and property owners could make alterations to their buildings without the City’s oversight. The only requirement was that if a property owner wanted to demolish a building, Council had 60 days to determine if the property merited designation, which would essentially deny the demolition application. This gave property owners flexibility, while the City could ensure that important buildings were retained for future generations to enjoy. 

Prior to the introduction of Bill 23, properties on the Heritage Register would remain on the Register in perpetuity unless removed by Council. When Bill 23’s changes came into effect last year, it meant that properties will no longer be permanently protected on a Heritage Register. All properties on a municipal heritage register will lose their heritage status if not individually designated under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act by the end of 2024. Properties that are removed from the Register cannot be re-added to the Register for five years. 

As a result of the Bill 23 changes, the City will lose an important tool in protecting its heritage buildings at a time when a wave of unprecedented development is anticipated. A number of architecturally and historically significant buildings (especially in the city’s downtown where two-thirds of the City’s Listed properties are located) will be at risk of demolition. 

When buildings like the Welland House were lost, we heard a lot about how these buildings are important to the City. Designating buildings individually is a long and challenging process involving intensive research and evaluation. With so many properties to protect in a short time, staff determined that it simply wasn’t feasible to do this work with the resources available. Instead, seeing that Heritage Districts have been successful in other areas of our city, Council approved a strategy to conduct a Downtown Heritage Conservation District Study as an efficient alternative that will protect important heritage buildings and provide guidance for how the future of the downtown will look for generations to come.

4. What do HCDs do?

Broadly speaking, HCDs are a planning tool to protect an area with a defined heritage character. They are implemented by passing a municipal by-law that designates the area. To manage change in the area, a heritage permit system is implemented where permission from the City is required for certain things, like new additions to buildings, new-build design, or major exterior alterations to buildings. 

Heritage Conservation Districts are intended to:

• Create a planning process that respects a community’s history and identity
• Manage change with a process of heritage alteration permits for certain types of renovation, restoration, and new construction
• Foster an appreciation of a community’s heritage resources
• Protect the integrity of buildings, streetscapes, structures, landforms, and natural features
• Promote cultural tourism and economic development

5. What do HCDs NOT do?

There are a lot of myths around the idea of “heritage” and what it means if your property is considered a heritage property. 

Some of these myths include:

• HCDs stop new construction or redevelopment
  • New construction or redevelopment is welcome, as long as it is consistent with the guidelines in the District Plan. Downtown St. Catharines is the City’s Urban Growth Area, so we fully expect new construction to occur in the future as part of creating a vibrant downtown. Ultimately, we want to see a revitalized downtown that still feels like downtown St. Catharines. 
• Lower property values
  • Studies have shown that heritage properties do not lose value, and often property values actually increase. This is because heritage properties tend to be well-maintained and part of an area with other well-maintained properties. There is also a market for people who specifically seek out these types of properties. One of the most common calls that our heritage planner gets is from realtors representing clients looking to buy heritage properties.
• Cause owners to lose their property rights
  • The planning framework in Ontario already restricts certain property rights through zoning, the Official Plan, the Planning Act and other pieces of local and provincial policies and legislation. While certain restrictions might be placed on the types of changes a heritage property owner can make, the District Plan is intended to provide guidelines and policies that are in the best interest of all property owners to ensure that the area maintains its important character.  
• Require all new construction to match a specific historical style 
  • Recreating historical styles in new buildings is not considered a best practice in heritage planning. Rather than ask property owners and developers to create fake heritage buildings, we’d rather focus on celebrating and protecting the heritage buildings we have, while adding modern buildings that are compatible with the vision for the downtown and contribute to its vibrancy. 
• Require that all buildings be rebuilt ‘like for like’ where there are catastrophic events (fire, flood, natural disasters, etc).
  • In the unfortunate loss of a building, there would be no intention from the City to ask a property owner to rebuild a property as it had once looked. Where possible, staff and the Heritage Advisory Committee may ask property owners to salvage materials for re-use in a new building, but only where the materials are significant and in a good condition for re-use.
• Make owners require a permit for every little alteration to their building
  • Certain alterations will not require a heritage permit. This will be determined as part of the policies and guidelines that are developed as part of the District Plan. Ultimately, the goal will be to find a balance that ensures that property owners and business owners are not overwhelmed with heritage requirements while ensuring that negative impacts are avoided.