Lost Heritage: a survey of historicbuilding demolitions in Ontario, Canada

Abstract

There has been legislation in place since the 1970s in Canada's largest province, Ontario,that encourages the identification of significant heritage buildings and is supposed to providethem with at least a degree of protection. Both heritage recognition and most other land usedecisions, however, are exercised at the local government level. W'hile conservation ofheritage structures has been successful in some places, an alarming number of significanthistoric buildings in the province continue to be lost. Relying on dozens of volunteers, thisstudy examined thousands of buildings in over twenty Ontario communities and sought toestablish how many heritage buildings had been demolished and to determine why theselosses were occurring. It was discovered that in the municipalities surveyed over 400historically recognised buildings had been lost in the last sixteen years. Recommendations forhow to deal with this problem are included in the study.