[HeritageTO]

Would like some feedback on an idea on behalf of Heritage Toronto. We want to gauge whether people would be interested in attending a series of workshops/seminars that focus on heritage and advocacy in Toronto. Hopefully such efforts would get people interested, involved and empowered. What do you think? What are your expectations to make such an event successful? What kinds of topics would people be interested in?

February 3, 2010:

I would like to thank all those who have visited and added to the discussion. This is positive! I think its worth it that I clarify Heritage Toronto's (HT) position on a few common themes that have popped up, hopefully this will help focus on your discussions. Based on the discussions so far, I have made a note that preservation requirements etc. are of interest.

HT is an arms-length City agency that provides programs and education (walks, plaques, awards, photo exhibit) and we are aware of and work with the community on heritage issues and bring them to the right people at City Hall.

Toronto's Heritage Preservation Services is a City department dealing strictly with any planning in terms of heritage. They are the ones that can officially recommend designation and listing via Council, they make recommendations regarding developments that involve heritage buildings.

We like to know what kind of workshop would help you become more aware of heritage in Toronto.

Thanks,
Heritage Toronto

 

[SunriseChampion]

I work in custom residential construction and one thing that bothers me is the destruction of perfectly good housing stock from the early 20th century and beyond that is destroyed and replaced with....well, complete shite. I work mostly in central Toronto so I'm talking about the beautiful old homes in Rosedale, Forest Hill, Deer Park, etc.
I understand that most of these places are not at all culturally significant but I think they are representative of a collective past that should be cherished, not wantonly destroyed as is often the case.
So, topics covering private residences would be of great interest to me, personally.

PS:Seriously, replacement of a nice brick and stone early 20th century home with a stucco and asphalt shingle monstrosity or a faux-chateau pre-cast beast just seems criminal to me. I feel bad working on some of these projects. I just think we do rather poorly in Canada protecting and respecting our collective history.

 

[PinkLucy]

I understand that most of these places are not at all culturally significant but I think they are representative of a collective past that should be cherished, not wantonly destroyed as is often the case.
So, topics covering private residences would be of great interest to me, personally.

I think private residences are extremely culturally significant -- how did people live? what were there homes like? what were the trends in design and decor? how did different neighbourhoods develop and why? Lots of cultural info there!

 

[Eug]

Would like some feedback on an idea on behalf of Heritage Toronto. We want to gauge whether people would be interested in attending a series of workshops/seminars that focus on heritage and advocacy in Toronto. Hopefully such efforts would get people interested, involved and empowered. What do you think? What are your expectations to make such an event successful? What kinds of topics would people be interested in?

One topic might be how Heritage Toronto works with contractors and private individuals to help preserve the cultural history of Toronto while not overly infringing on the rights of individuals. It seems to me that for real estate, the majority of individuals (including myself) specifically avoid homes with heritage designation because of all the added baggage.

 

[greenleaf]

I don't know where Heritage Toronto stands on this issue and whether or not it falls into heritage advocacy, but it would be interesting to have a panel discussion that took an example of how a new development incorporated a heritage building successfully, with the idea that those in the community could take ideas from this example to use it with developments the future. Toronto is going to run into this issue continually as the city grows taller and more dense in the core.

It would be better to have conversations with builders and the community about this than ignore it and have knee-jerk reactions on each side every time it comes up.

Facadism would be an interesting discussion as well.

 

[junctionist]

One topic might be how Heritage Toronto works with contractors and private individuals to help preserve the cultural history of Toronto while not overly infringing on the rights of individuals. It seems to me that for real estate, the majority of individuals (including myself) specifically avoid homes with heritage designation because of all the added baggage.

I think it's important to Heritage Toronto to counter the image that a heritage property is some burden to avoid. It should be considered a privilege to own, something that suggests great achievement.

 

[SunriseChampion]

^I agree. I would consider it a privilege to own.

I meant culturally significant vis a vis their former inhabitants, but you're right, they mostly are culturally significant in and of themselves.

 

[adma]

And also, that (a) there needn't necessarily be this myth of "added baggage" to heritage designation (i.e. it works more flexibly relative to "rights of individuals" than it may appear), and (b) if there remains too much "baggage" for comfort, maybe it's simply a passive means of weeding out those who're incapable or unwilling to handle it. Eug not excepted.

And (c) it can be a more passive cultural attitude-adjuster, i.e. something that, by example, allows us, agents, buyers, owners etc to treat our properties in a latent "heritage-esque" matter. So it broadens the field even as it fleshes out its boundaries--and conversely, it may lead the Eug-es of the world to practice a little "anticipatory heritage awareness" so that they don't bumble into situations they'll wind up regretting.

All in all, it isn't even all about that insipid abstraction known as capital-H "Heritage"--it's simply about instilling a comprehensively sensitive approach to one's property (and maybe even more importantly, its genius loci). And the absence of the same is evident in many a McMansion out there: it isn't just their ugliness that appalls, it's their dunderheaded, entropic narcissism. They're the urban equivalent of insolent louts who sleep through history class, get an F, and don't give a flying F...

 

[Eug]

As usual, adma's attitude is something most would like to see much less of, and it would be useful for those at Heritage Toronto to illustrate to the public that they can operate without this inappropriate elitist and condescending approach.

Attitudes such as adma's can only serve to work against the goal of heritage advocacy.

 

[adma]

Speaketh he whose axe to grind led him to side with the developer in the 7 Austin Terrace case.

Take your pick, folks.

 

[Archivist]

Though it is likely out of scope for Heritage Toronto, I find the current system for making distinctions between buildings that are "listed" vs "designated", and for Heritage Conservation Districts, "contributing" vs "non-contributing", to be rather opaque. I have always thought that we would gain more understanding of what is on the inventory and its significance if a more rigorous classification were in force and applied to all properties (but this would be dependent on new legislation at the provincial level, and would be a huge amount of work to apply retroactively). I always thought of something like the below, with a few examples pulled essentially at random.

A - Interior and exterior of a building are both protected and changes are considered to be in the public interest and must be consulted on (rare, and likely only used for publicly-accessible buildings) - ie., Campbell House, Ontario Legislature. (Don't even change the curtains without calling us)
B - A significant building which much be preserved and is not a candidate for being made into a facade (interior renovations are OK but require consultation) - CHUM City building (Don't even think about sticking a 50-storey tower out the top)
C - A significant building that may have alterations and additions, unless otherwise stated the interior is up for grabs, but major changes need to be consulted on - and we seriously hope you will preserve more than the walls - Gloucester Mews on Yonge Street (Please be nice and preserve this, but we'll talk).
D - A building of primarily contextual significance to which interior changes can be made and to which appropriate additions could occur after consultation - Somerset House Hotel at the corner Carlton & Church (Keep it if you can, if you can't, keep some of it).
E - A building of little consequence that happens to lie within a Heritage Conservation District (non-contributing) - ie., Pinnacle Centre. (Fill out a form and blow 'er up if you have to).

I think people get the feeling that under our current regime most buildings, for all intents and purposes, fall into the (D) category if they are protected at all. And then you get people like Eug who seem to think everything is an (A). I don't think that's necessarily supported by our recent past, but a clearer set of rules and guidelines might be appreciated by all. For instance, it might help Eug if he were to purchase something in an HCD knowing that it was a category (D) or (E).

 

[Eug]

Archivist, that would be quite useful, but yes, out of their scope. Nonetheless, explanations of such issues to the public from the organization in an inclusive manner, with examples such as yours along with pictures and descriptions of the neighbourhoods, would probably go a long way to further the cause.

Obviously I don't think everything is in A, but even your class C and D are of concern to me as a potential purchaser. In fact, when I was looking for a home 10 years ago, I struck off my list one such heritage home that fell into that category. (That home sat unpurchased for quite some time from what I understand.) A clear outline of the various issues involved and the potential solutions to them would help many real estate buyers immensely.

 

[Tewder]

Sigh, does anybody really care? My fear is no. We are a rarified breed around here that does it seems...

To celebrate and value a sense of the 'history' and 'heritage' that defines us there has to be some sense of a collective 'us' to start with, which simply doesn't appear to be the case, in large measure at least, and which is why there is no perceived value considered that would stop one from levelling a heritage home to build a McMansion in its place, and why there is no Museum of Toronto in a city of our size or why our first Parliament site lays under asphalt or why we would bulldoze 43 heritage buildings in Brantford without even a plan for redevelopment or why...

In other words we can continue to meet in our marginalized little groups and to come up with all kinds of creative strategies to save heritage, but these strategies will continue to fail at preserving heritage in any profound and sustainable way if we don't care to examine the deeper cultural issues that create the problem to start with. This is the challenge for heritage preservation: Canada/Ontario has gone from colonial outpost to multicultural olio with little identity development in between such that if there is little interest in, or passion for, our collective past it is because there is little collective understanding or appreciation of it to start with. It is a history without a perceived 'story', a mythology without a valued myth. Old buildings are simply creeky old structures with rooms that are too small. Monuments are wasteful and get in the way of where functional grid-pattern roads should go. Heritage sites impose greenspace where a condo would do better. Museums take funds away from the kind of more profitable social spending that will ensure greater popular interest and more votes... and so on.

At the end of the day serious heritage preservation requires a commitment of money and a certain degree of imposition on society, and therefore requires the collective social acceptance/understanding that these costs are worthy and beneficial to society in ways and for reasons that are not necessarily functional or obviously quantifiable. We have to simply believe it to be true. These things have to be valued as part of the greater good, and this is what you will find in areas across North America that are far more successful at heritage preservation than us, relatively speaking. To achieve this though will require the support of a government mandate, the support of the education curriculum, financial support through funding, the eventual raising of a public conscious on the issue, and time. Until then we will continue to lose important parts of our cultural landscape. In either case it is only really a matter of time.

 

[Urban Shocker]

One topic that Heritage Toronto might consider presenting to the public in workshop form is the idea that we are building heritage today, in 2010. There's a general perception that the word only applies to "old" buildings. On a forum such as this one there's probably a nostalgic bias towards distinctively Torontonian structures from earlier times - our bay 'n' gables at best, and anything that's old and still standing at worst - as true reflections of our city, and a disinclination to treasure Toronto's contemporary architecture as an equivalent expression of who we are today that's worthy of designation and listing.

 

[Archivist]

Tewder, I understand and sympathize with your cri de coeur. But isn't it just a bit overstated? Speaking of Toronto only, so far this decade we have seen few significant losses - in this category I would include Bata and Walnut Hall - of course, other notable buildings are gone, like a few houses on Jarvis, some on Charles, the James Chalmers, Inn on the Park, and others. And some have been facaded, like John Lyle, the National Building, the old Mount Sinai, and others. Overall, hardly a perfect record, but not the tale of woe you portray (Brantford aside) - especially when contrasted with the heritage "wins" of the last decade - the Distillery District, the Carlu, Palais Royale, Toy Factory, Wychwood Barns, and others. Think about the enormous amount of effort that has gone into the preservation of the James Cooper mansion alone, which is now likely to be repeated on the Richard West Houses. The number of formerly industrial buildings converted into lofts in the last decade, often quite sensitively, is enormous. When you think that the Candy Factory Lofts conversion happened in 1998-2000 or so, and was an early one, the sheer numbers after that would almost be hard to list.

At the same time, our heritage legislation has been strengthened, and the number of heritage disticts, which each comprise hundreds of buildings, is growing quite rapidly. Though I couldn't put my finger on the exact number, I would guess that for every listed building in 2000, we have 10 listed buildings in 2010.

Yes, we could be doing more. Houses that are not, and never will be, on any heritage listing, are being replaced in huge numbers by monster homes. I don't think your statement is particularly balanced. When people start on with me about how "we rip everything down", I usually say, "what buildings were ripped down in the past ten years that you thought were most unfortunate?". Few people can name a single building, or perhaps Bata alone.