Protecting History: Oakville launches heritage grants

NRU
February 26, 2014
By Sarah Ratchford

The Town of Oakville is launching a new heritage grant pilot program today, with the goal of strengthening the town’s ties to its own history, and encouraging more residents to apply for a heritage designation.

Planning Services current planning and heritage senior manager Scott Hannah says residents have been inquiring over the past few years as to whether the town has a grant program for restoring features of their heritage properties. As this is Oakville’s first crack at a heritage grant program, the answer was “no.”

“We’re trying to assist property owners with the cost of restoring and maintaining their properties. Because in most cases, if you have a heritage property and we’re telling you to maintain your historic windows, to restore or repair them is much more costly than buying new windows,” he tells NRU.

“It’s just part of trying to improve our heritage program.”

The program will fund up to 50 per cent of eligible heritage restoration projects, for a total of $15,000 per project. Each applicant can request funding for only one project per property.

The pilot will include $80,000 per year, and the program will last for three years.

Applicants have until April 11 to submit proposals for the funding. But Hannah stresses that they must first consult with heritage planning staff to ensure their project is eligible.

Eligible work is outlined on the town’s website, and includes everything from repairs to the structural support elements of the property to decorative architectural detailing.

Repairs and upgrades to heritage properties which do not contribute to maintaining the historic nature of the property - for example, driveway paving and repairs - are not eligible.

Ward 2 town and regional councillor Cathy Duddeck is a member of Heritage Oakville, which recommended the program to council. She says the point of the program is to assist homeowners with repairs to add value to the community for future generations.

“We, as a community, appreciate their stewardship of Oakville’s heritage and realize that their efforts are not without financial implications,” she tells NRU. “The Heritage grant program was created to assist them so as to defray a portion of their maintenance.”

Hannah says he thinks the program will be successful, and expects there will be lots of demand for funding. He says part of the pilot will be carefully monitoring the requests that come in to determine how to shape the program going forward.

“What we’re doing over [the three-year pilot] is looking for a long-term strategy to continue that program. If it’s not successful, then it may not be continued.”

Part of that assessment will involve determining where the money will come from. The funding for the pilot is partially derived from developer contributions to the heritage fund, and the rest comes from the town.

Hannah says he expects planning services will report back to council as part of the 2016 budget on the pilot’s success.

“The question for us is going to be ‘How do we maintain this in the future.”