In November 2022, the Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia met with the Hon. Pat Dunn, Minister of Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage, to showcase the economic, social and environmental importance of built heritage to Nova Scotia. We also shared with the Minister our deep concerns about the alarming loss of historic buildings across the province. Finally, we presented the Minister with a list of specific actions that we believe the Province must take to strengthen the protection of built heritage in Nova Scotia. The Trust then followed up this very successful meeting by writing every MLA in the province to urge them to implement our recommendations to the Minister.
Now we are calling on all Nova Scotians who value Nova Scotia’s built heritage to add your voices to the Heritage Trust’s call for better built heritage protections.
What can you do?
Write to your MLA and tell them what built heritage means to you and your community.
Ask them to strengthen the protection of built heritage by taking the following actions:
1. Update and strengthen the Nova Scotia Heritage Property Act including:
a) removing Section 18 of the Act, which currently allows owners of municipally registered heritage buildings to demolish them after a three-year waiting period, a provision that exists nowhere else in Canada;
b) creating a pause provision of up to one year for specific types of development while conservation plans and bylaws are prepared for Heritage Conservation Districts or Cultural Landscape Conservation Districts;
c) creating a 30-day holding bylaw for potential heritage assets to protect them from demolition while applications for heritage designation are being considered;
d) increasing and enforcing fines for illegal demolition of designated heritage properties.
2. Create more incentives to encourage heritage preservation and designations, including:
a) enabling municipalities to give preferential property tax treatment to owners of heritage buildings;
b) introducing other financial and regulatory incentives that encourage the restoration and adaptive re-use of heritage properties.
3. Create policies that discourage the demolition of historic building stock, including:
a) enabling municipalities to require residential property owners to have building permits in place before they are granted permission to demolish existing residential units;
b) enabling municipalities to increase tax rates for vacant properties where owners have demolished existing residential units without an approved plan for development.
4. Initiate a development and marketing strategy for Nova Scotia’s heritage tourism product.
How to make your submission
For inspiration you can look at the letter we sent to the Province summarizing why heritage is important to Nova Scotia and outlining the actions we want the Province to take. Our letter is here.
As much as possible we encourage you to personalize your submission and use your own words.
Find contact information for your MLA here: https://enstools.electionsnovascotia.ca/edinfo/
Please be sure to copy Allan MacMaster, Minister of Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage: MIN_CCTH@novascotia.ca
Please CC: the Heritage Trust because we would love to hear why built heritage is important to you: contact@htns.ca
On behalf of the Trust, thank you for joining us in fighting to better protect our province’s irreplaceable built heritage.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.