The conservation and protection of our heritage resources falls under a number of legislative acts with the most prevalent being the Ontario Heritage Act, amended in 2006. The amended Ontario Heritage Act has a direct link to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB). Should a property owner be seeking demolition of a heritage designated property and the municipality does not support the request for demolition then the owner has the right to appeal before the OMB. Other heritage matters that are referred to the OMB are objections to the establishment of a heritage conservation district, or major alterations within a heritage conservation district.

The OMB, very simply put, is a commission, appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council with a mandate to hear applications related to land use planning, financial issues related to development charges, land expropriation, municipal finance and other legislated financial areas. The Ontario Heritage Act allows for a member of the Ontario Conservation Review Board (CRB) to be seconded to the OMB in order to hear cases that are more heritage related in their focus. Unfortunately this has not been a common practice as the CRB members are part-time, most of whom work in other fields and can not devote more than one or two days on a hearing. Many OMB hearings tend to be multiple days and often weeks in length due to the complexity of issues that arise. Therefore, to date there have been no secondments of a CRB member to the OMB heritage related cases which endure more than a couple of days.

There can be a fine line between heritage related issues and land use planning in cases that go before the OMB. As the OMB is used to hearing cases solely on the merit of good planning practice, the extra element of heritage conservation and land use are likely to get confused, or in the worst case scenario ignored.

There is a serious problem for heritage applications before the OMB whereby there are no CRB representatives. If you were not aware, OMB hearings are usually heard by one, and sometimes two OMB members. This individual or team of two, in effect act as judge and jury. The OMB member is the Chair of the hearing and makes all decisions, which are final. If this individual does not have an understanding and sensitivity to heritage planning and conservation then the lack of understanding may result in less than favourable conditions for the conservation of heritage resources.

It was great news when the Ontario Heritage Act was amended in 2006 providing the authority to City Council to deny demolition permits to heritage designated property. The bad news was that these cases will now go before the OMB where it is unlikely that the attending Chair will have a background or understanding of cultural heritage conservation. We need OMB reform for many reasons, but meanwhile let's hope that heritage conservation gets a fair deal.

Photo: The John Abell Factory of the Queen West Triangle