Insider: The heritage hustle at city hall

Good day!

Welcome back to the Insider. Today, we take a look at the city’s big rush to get through its list of heritage properties. The city, like many in Ontario, keeps a list of notable properties that might be suitable for full heritage protection. Now, the provincial government has given cities across Ontario a deadline to either designate these buildings, or have them automatically removed.

We get into how the city is coping with it, and what the difference is between a property in the heritage registry and one that has designated heritage status.

Plus, we review a few notable votes at last week’s council meeting, where things seem to have calmed down since the acrimonious debate over developer donations for local improvements. And as always, we’ve got some of your feedback on city policy.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

— Robert Hiltz, managing editor

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HOUSING

City removes dozens of properties from heritage registry

What happened: City council voted to remove 465 properties from the city’s heritage register. The decision comes as a provincial deadline approaches that would remove all properties on the register, and forbid them from receiving full heritage designation until after a five-year cooling off period.

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