By:
Lisa Van de Ven
More
developers are opting for heritage preservation
Most would agree that preserving Toronto's heritage buildings
is a priority. But in a city with less and less land available
for residential housing, such a goal demands diligence and creativity
on the part of planners and developers.
"There's a long-standing tradition of the value of heritage
as part of the city-building process," says Sherry Pedersen,
preservation co-ordinator with the city-run Heritage Preservation
Services department. "More and more, the development community
is demonstrating a willingness to work with us to find creative
solutions that conserve the value of the heritage resource."
The Heritage Preservation Services department was established
last year as part of the ongoing City of Toronto amalgamation
initiated in 1998. Prior to that, the organization operated as
Heritage Toronto and worked at arm's length from the city.
Now considered a department for the city, the staff continues
to work with developers on both residential and commercial projects
to find innovative designs that will meet city by-laws for heritage
sites. One of the department's priorities is saving buildings
on their existing sites, in their existing forms.
"Moving a heritage building to a new location diminishes
its heritage value significantly," Ms. Pedersen says. "We
only consider moving a building as a last resort."
Still, while relocating a heritage building or demolishing it
is not advisable, it is possible. The process can slow developers
down, however: It can take up to nine months to secure a building
permit if developers are looking to tear down a heritage building.
So the challenge becomes how to build around those heritage structures.
Nexxt Corp. is one developer that has faced that challenge. After
15 months of planning, the company has come up with a creative
solution to incorporate a church on its building site at 70 High
Park Avenue.
The Third Church of Christ, Scientist dates back to 1928, and
Nexxt is working it into the construction plans for a 21-storey
condominium building. Once the building is completed, residents
will enter through the original church doors and pass beneath
a preserved piece of stone that reads, "Thou Shalt Have No
Other Gods Before Me." The church's original facade, entryway
and lobby were deemed historically significant, says Jerald Silverberg,
chief executive of Nexxt, so "we have incorporated them into
the building." But what is preserved in one building is not
necessarily what gets saved in another.
According to Ms. Pedersen, every project is considered on its
own merits. Generally, a building can be deemed significant on
the basis of its architecture, historical significance in a particular
community or because of its age.
Earmarked buildings are reviewed by Heritage Preservation Services
and listed as historically significant within a city by-law. Those
by-laws outline why the building is deemed significant and what
parts of the structure must be preserved. The aim is to preserve
entire buildings, but if that is not possible, the heritage department's
goal is to keep certain features untouched.
To help in these preservation efforts, the city's planning department
often provides incentives for developers. For some building sites
there are greater allowances made for height and density and fewer
parking requirements. These allowances are negotiated based on
the development's proposed location and its surrounding area and
they vary from project to project. "It allows the developer
to negotiate something that otherwise they may not have been able
to negotiate," says David Eckler, principal architect with
AREA Heritage Consultants.
The incentives are part of a three-prong approach by the city
of Toronto to encourage historical preservation, says Mr. Eckler,
who also acts as a city consultant. The planning incentives have
worked well in areas such as the "two Kings" -- King
and Parliament and King and Spadina, where the city initiated
an organized effort in the '90s to develop heritage properties. "There
were some very sophisticated regulations for heritage buildings
there," he says.
The second part of the approach, Mr. Eckler says, involves creating
heritage conservation districts -- residential communities designated
historically significant as a whole. In New York City there are
almost as many "landmark communities" as there are historically
designated buildings; Toronto has only three such areas, though
studies on two more are underway. These "heritage conservation
districts," as they are called in Toronto, are Wychwood Park,
the East Annex and Fort York. The areas being considered for such
a designation are Metcalfe Street and Yorkville's Hazelton Avenue.
Builders looking to develop in heritage conservation districts
would need to follow certain guidelines, says Mr. Eckler, to make
sure they blend in with the local architecture. "I think
there's more of a recognition now that individual buildings ...
have a strength, meaning and importance within a collection of
buildings," he says.
The third strategy involves government grants and tax incentives
to help fund the preservation process. Since these buildings define
local communities, preserving and restoring the sites can also
mean improved public relations with the neighbouring community.
"There are a lot of buildings that people feel are part of
their community, and they don't want to see them disappear," says
Don Loucks, senior architect and heritage planner with IBI Group.
Mr. Loucks is one of the architects who worked on Can Alfa Group's
Liberty Village, a new master plan community at King and Strachan.Though
the community will be completely new, he says, an old prison chapel
located on the property will help link the old and new and give
community members a sense of history. Built in 1874, the chapel
is the last remaining building of a prison once located on the
land.
Can Alfa has decided to restore the building, which will be located
in the centre of a park in the middle of the community. Once the
building is restored, it will be given to the city for a community
site.
"It creates a link to the past," Mr. Loucks says. "I
think it will add a little more richness to the open area of the
park."
Saving a heritage building, says Mr. Loucks -- who also acts as
a consultant with the city -- can add shape to a project, giving
it an identity that can later be used to help market the development. "I
like to [say] heritage pays. It adds depth and richness to a project," he
says. "I think people pay a premium for that."
But saving a building can also mean increased costs for developers,
says Paul F. Anisman, president of Canadian Equity and Development
Corporation, which is developing the Trinity Park Lofts at Queen
and Dufferin. "You have to hire very specialized trades.
You have to hire people who do restoration work," he says. "It's
a lot easier to hit it with a bulldozer. But then history's gone."
At the centre of Trinity Park Lofts is the Farr House, a Georgian
home that was built in 1859. "I wanted to make the building
a focal point of the development," he says. "We had
to 'L' the [new] building around it. Most developers would have
knocked it down."
For this project Canadian Equity restored the Farr House, building
the rest of their lofts in a complementary style with bricks that
were designed to match the Georgian home. The Farr House is currently
the sales office for the project, but it too will be sold as either
residential or office space.
Saving a piece of the city's history, says Mr. Anisman, means
preserving the character of the community and of Toronto itself. "I
love historical buildings. I'm constantly travelling and studying
historical buildings," he says. "The real problem in
Toronto is that so many of these buildings were bulldozed over."
