February is heritage month in Canada, with Heritage Week celebrations taking place February 21st through 27th, 2022. If you’d like to learn more about Heritage celebrations across Ontario, check out the Heritage Trust website.
We are proud that Old Oakville is the oldest of our Town’s four Heritage Conservation Districts (HCD) and is in fact, one of the oldest Heritage Districts in the Province. Our District Plan has been in place since 1982 and is designated under the Ontario Heritage Act. District designation under section V of the Heritage Act enables a municipality to enact a district plan with policies and guidelines for conservation, protection, and enhancement of the area’s special character. It is therefore an important set of municipal planning guidelines used by the Town to safeguard its natural and built heritage.
There have been many changes that have taken place to heritage legislation in Ontario since the Old Oakville HCD was enacted over 40 years ago. Much of the information in the 1982 plan is now in need of updating and a new plan needs to be created that meets the requirements of these changes in provincial legislation. An update to the Old Oakville Heritage Conservation District was requested by Town Council in 2021 and approved as a budget item in the 2022 budget.
Within the OLRA, our Heritage sub-committee has been preparing for this work, considering ways we can support the Town and engage with you, our community, and OLRA members. You will see more from us in the coming weeks including:
An updated section of oakvillelra.ca dedicated to this topic.
Information to help you participate in this work including an inventory of heritage properties.
In the meantime, the Town’s information on the HCD Planning process is available online here. You may also be interested in reading the 1982 plan and seeing if your property is included in it. It’s available online here, and one of our first tasks will be to ask you for input and updates to this information (stay tuned!)
Lastly, in addition to these OLRA updates, you may choose to sign up for project updates from the Town by providing your contact information to heritagedistrict@oakville.ca.
We are excited about the opportunity to document and help protect our heritage and will share further updates and actions in our spring newsletter and upcoming website updates.
Stay tuned & Happy Heritage Week!
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