A Queen’s Park resident fears new provincial housing legislation could be devastating to the city’s heritage stock.
In an attempt to create more housing in British Columbia, the provincial government has introduced a number of pieces of legislation. One piece of the new housing legislation would allow three to six units on lots currently zoned for single-family or duplex use, depending on the size and location of the property.
David Brett believes heritage is the number 1 competitive advantage that the City of New Westminster has over other cities. He said the community heritage commission’s terms of reference recognized the value that heritage plays in the city and the need for it to be preserved and enjoyed.
“My concern is about the preservation of heritage in the face of the province's upzoning, the blanket upzoning everywhere,” he said. “My reading of the rules is that heritage protected properties and areas are going to be respected under the new upzoning amended rules of the province.”
Brett is concerned what the provincial legislation could mean to heritage properties that don’t have heritage protection or designation.
“Most of the houses in the city are not protected in any way, shape or form,” he said. “So, what that means, what I see coming, is a potential disaster, sort of a tornado of the demolition applications coming into the city as soon as the upzoning comes into place.”
Brett said the city has been able to use the heritage revitalization agreement process as “a carrot in the form of additional density” to provide people with an incentive to preserve and protect their properties.
“Now, with the stroke of a pen, all those incentives are gone,” he said. “So people get the density, whether they protect their heritage or not.”
Brett said the “teardown index” predicts the likelihood of a home being torn down. He worries that many homes in the city could be “bulldozed and replaced by boxes” because of the decreasing value of houses over time.
“What do we do about it? A heritage conservation area for the entirety of the City of New Westminster? Almost,” he told council Monday night. “So I would say someone should make a motion to direct staff to study areas of the city that should be immediately targeted for heritage conservation areas to preserve the historic integrity of New Westminster.”
Coun. Daniel Fontaine asked staff what the provincial legislation means for heritage areas in B.C.
Demian Rueter, acting senior manager of climate action, planning and development, said the provincial legislation is very new. He noted that all of the guidelines just came out on Friday.
“So we're still in the process of figuring out how all of these pieces fit together,” he said. “We are intending to come forward to council with a workshop, of going through all of the pieces of legislation, in January, where we can discuss those types of issues.”
As far as heritage goes, Rueter said the legislation is “pretty clear” that local governments can’t use heritage to avoid the types of growth that the province’s legislation is trying to facilitate.
“We're lucky in New Westminster that we have a long history of sort of balancing heritage and still allowing development, so that's something that we would intend to still try to follow,” he said. “But all the pieces, we're still putting that together, and we're going to have a very fulsome conversation with council in January where we can discuss those issues.”
