Challenges

One of the central issues that arose is the strong scepticism about heritage conservation and, particularly the heritage designation of property in rural communities. In Ontario, only designated heritage properties recognized by provincial legislation are eligible to be nominated to the Canadian Register. As such, a positive view of heritage designation is essential for the successful implementation of the Historic Places Initiative within rural Ontario communities.

Designation has an aura of limitation, control, and government bureaucracy about it that summons up an inborn resistance in many people hindered further by the perception of imposing arbitrary rules on the evolution of private properties, with few, if any, financial incentives offered in compensation. Many rural residents still believe the myth, dispelled by Robert Shipley and Donovan R. Rypkema, that heritage designation can even reduce property values.

The vast majority of properties the team examined were designated in the early and mid 1980s, a time when Ontario provided financial incentives for heritage properties. As financial incentives for maintaining heritage properties were reduced, there appeared to be a corresponding drop in the number of properties receiving designation, posing a challenge for the continued growth of the Canadian Register in rural Ontario communities. There is little current incentive or financial rationale for the agricultural sector to find the time, energy, or financial resources to preserve unused structures such as barns and associated outbuildings in their original form. Nevertheless, residents’ negative perceptions of heritage designations is not a reflection of the survival of their intense passion for the land and buildings and the ways in which residents along the Rideau Corridor preserve and express the past. Although heritage designation is a viable solution within some heritage circles, it is not universally perceived nor understood as such within many rural communities along the Rideau Corridor.

Municipal Heritage Committees-Essential Capacity Building Blocks

In larger urban areas, the team was able to work directly with municipal staff to nominate properties for the Canadian Register and update municipal designation by-laws. In smaller, rural areas, the responsibility for implementing the Historic Places Initiative was relatively unclear, as none of the smaller municipalities and townships employed heritage planners. Smaller locales typically employ one municipal staff member who oversees a multitude of portfolios, including heritage planning.

The project found that the establishment of a Municipal Heritage Committee was a crucial first step toward successfully nominating designated heritage properties to the Canadian Register because the Municipal Heritage Committee members could act as front-line administrators and stewards of cultural heritage resource management. Work in communities was greatly facilitated by the presence of a Municpal Heritage Committee, while in those without one, very little progress was made in nominating designated heritage properties to the Canadian Heritage. Of the ten rural communities involved in the Rideau Heritage Initiative, only four had a Municipal Heritage Committee at the outset of the project. By the project’s end, however, two new Municipal Heritage Committees had been established in rural townships with the explicit intention of encouraging new municipal heritage designations. It remains uncertain though whether Municipal Heritage Committees alone can and will implement components of the Historic Places Initiative.

Linking Heritage and Economic Development: A Double-Edged Sword

As Donovan Rypkema observes, structuring heritage conservation strategies in opposition to economic development is counter-productive and can encourage myopic long-term community planning. The problem is not change itself, as change is inevitable, but rather the nature, scale, and pace of change in rural communities.

One of the potential opportunities for Historic Places Initiative is that its work can demonstrate that conserving heritage resources in rural communities is not antithetical to economic development strategies. Economic development strategies are designed to increase the vitality of a community. However, when heritage and economic development strategies are treated as mutually exclusive priorities, the end result is often the creation of bland spaces through big-box commercial development and uncontrolled urban sprawl that can dramatically change the character and fabric of a community. A heritage conservation tool like the Historic Places Initiative can help rural communities manage this change – it enables them to step back, identify, understand, and ultimately protect the unique characteristics and values of local heritage places. Armed with this information, the integration into the economic development plans is greatly enhanced, and not only from the aspect of tourism.

The limitations, of yoking heritage and development together, for example, when heritage tourism is seen as the solution, belies the importance of being sensitive to local community dynamics to avoid the oversimplification of a community’s economic, social, and cultural infrastructures. In a recent report, J. Friesen underlines this point.

“...Heritage-in-service-of-tourism can become too closely linked to economic development... when the historical message offered in such projects is geared primarily to an ‘outside’ market or transient visitor, then it does long-term disservice to its own community members and their sense of the past.”

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