Civilized Urban Planning: March 2016

Thursday, March 17, 2016

The question of heritage

On one hand, there is preservation architecture with the goal of "doing it correctly" - preserving the original design intent, and outward appearance of a building.

On the other is Vancouver, dealing with issues around heritage and what exactly to preserve. Does it preserve its visual look with signs or this?

Toronto has started to preserve its verbal history with story-telling:

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2015/05/10/how-one-toronto-neighbourhood-brought-its-history-to-life.html

Heritage house demolished

But what does one preserve? In a speech to council, Vancouver Vanishes used the theory of up-cycling by saying: "older houses like these were once the type that young or lower income families could afford, improve, put a secondary mortgage helper suite in and later trade up, leaving a better house behind, one that honoured the lives and stories of all its previous inhabitants." So there are resources lost - "the developer purchases a house built with the kind of craftsmanship that barely exists today, using natural materials (including first growth wood). It stands empty, sometimes for years, then is demolished, sending tonnes of waste to the landfill, plus concrete, and in many cases its beautiful garden, too."

Good point but as one article asks: "who is willing to take a loss on the sale of their property – if the City could indeed come up with a way to lower land values?" or "who is willing to support the scale of density bonusing or infill required to make retention of the existing house sufficiently attractive?"

According to one news report "roughly 96 per cent of Vancouverites believe heritage buildings need to be preserved and contribute to our sense of place."

"But somebody blew it up, because they could put a much larger house on the property." http://www.vancouversun.com/fight+vanishing+Vancouver/9647882/story.html?__lsa=9aca-04e5

The goal remains: "to bring together humans and communities through a multifocal and non-discriminatory philosophy that places equal emphasis on all facets of time, all kinds of places, and all types of people" - http://globalurbanist.com/2016/02/23/historic-preservation-essay