Frightening.

That’s how Petrolia Councillor Liz Welsh describes changes to the Ontario Heritage Act which, according to some experts, say will lead to heritage buildings across the province being “flattened” in the name of improving access to housing.

The provincial government included sweeping changes to the Ontario Heritage Act in the Build More Homes Faster Act. The changes took effect in January, but heritage groups across the province are still trying to figure out how to protect important heritage buildings under the new regime.

The provincial government, in a bid to build 1.5 million new homes in the province in the next 10 years, changed nine different pieces of legislation including the Ontario Heritage Act.

The most significant change to the Heritage Act is limiting how long a property can stay on a heritage register without getting a provincial designation. Right now, if a home is designated municipally, it stays on the register. The new rules say they’ll be taken off the list after two years if the municipality hasn’t applied for provincial legislation. Once it is off the list, municipalities won’t be able to add it to the register again for five years.

Registering a property municipally is not as time consuming as trying to work through the provincial designation process. If someone wants to demolish a municipally designated building, it has to give 60 days notice.

Provincial heritage advocates condemned the changes saying there is no evidence heritage conservation stops housing development, according to Diane Chin, the chair of the Architectural Conservancy Ontario.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that in two years, when municipalities will be forced to remove listed protection from most of the 31,000 or more heritage properties across Ontario, that it will start to rain buildings,” Chin says.
Petrolia is rich in heritage buildings.

The municipality lists 12 properties as designated heritage properties, including Victoria Hall and Petrolia Discovery. There are also about two dozen Ontario Heritage Designated homes, which works out to one property for every 158 residents.

The changes are worrying to Welsh – a long time advocate for history in the community who says some heritage buildings could be left without any protection at all two years from now.

“It’s frightening, and I’m not entirely sure there’s a whole lot we’re going to be able to do about it. But, you know, we’ll explore what the possibilities are,” she says. Welsh has asked municipal staff to look into the changes to see what Petrolia can do to protect its heritage buildings.

“There’s so many sweeping changes with Bill 23, that I don’t even know yet what it’s going to look like. A lot of municipal heritage committees are taking some steps on their own to try and mitigate this.”