CENTRE WELLINGTON – Township staff are hopeful hiring a temporary full-time intern will help them designate more registered heritage properties by 2025.
Approved during a Centre Wellington council meeting Monday afternoon, the township's manager of planning services Mariana Iglesias said the township will likely designate 10 to 12 heritage properties by the fall of this year with the assistance of the new intern and “perhaps more” if staff can find “more efficiencies” and get the heritage committee working.
As of Jan, 1. 2025, Bill 23 will require any building listed but not designated on a municipal heritage register to be removed and not re-added for another five years.
Owners of properties on the heritage register are currently required to give 60 days notice to council of their intention to demolish or remove a building or structure.
There are 1,052 properties on the township's municipal heritage register: 121 designated properties and 931 listed properties.
“We could increase that number but I just want to be realistic here and not overstate what we can accomplish,” said Iglesias, during the meeting.
To be funded through the heritage reserve fund, staff said designating 12 properties will cost between $18,000 and $20,000 in administrative fees and the intern position is estimated to cost $15,000 over four months.
Staff are also investigating the feasibility of funding the intern position annually to continue increasing the number of designations said Iglesias.
Any properties removed from the register in 2025 will be added to an "unofficial list" which staff plan to use as they form a process to re-add properties after the five years is up.
Using rural properties as an example, Iglesias said staff are also looking into designating properties that weren't previously registered.
Centre Wellington has the highest number of designations per capita in the province
Isabel Buckmaster is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program.
