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Originally Posted by spaustin
I personally think that we need to improve the incentives around heritage properties (maybe a small tax rebate), because registration doesn't provide the owner with much.
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I agree. This has happened somewhat along Barrington but there should be stronger heritage incentives throughout the city. Unfortunately, instead of questioning why some heritage buildings are not economical, politicians and heritage advocates have often taken the easy way out and pointed fingers at property owners. They can wag their fingers all they want but that is not a viable heritage strategy.
Occasionally people like Phil Pacey have made economic arguments, but I have never seen anything convincing. One proposal (I think from Pacey) was that the height limit throughout the downtown should be 4 storeys in order to remove the incentive for developers to redevelop small older buildings. That proposal would have done nothing in terms of making downtown a successful retail, office, and residential district supporting rents sufficient to maintain expensive masonry buildings. Pacey has also suggested that upzoning properties is bad for housing affordability. Maybe that would be true in an unsustainable, moribund district of ageing, unmaintained buildings. I would not consider that successful heritage preservation.
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It's too bad that the debate has become really clouded over the last several decades with arguments over vacant lots.
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Yeah, it is too bad. Heritage preservation used to mean architecture, then streetscapes, then views, and now it has been expanded to include pretty much any development. A big part of the problem is that there's considerable overlap between the heritage advocates and NIMBY groups, and the NIMBYs have hijacked the heritage debate to further their agenda.