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Melville Park Heritage District Advances - Hamilton Municipal Heritage Committee - March 27, 2026
Hamilton · March 28, 2026
Three. Sound check. 1 2 3 Good afternoon everyone. As we have quorum present for today's meeting, I'd like to call this meeting of the Hamilton Municipal Heritage Committee to order. Just as a reminder, all electronic devices should be switched to a non-audible function during our committee meetings. We'll move into our roll call. If I could get everyone to acknowledge their presence, if you could just make sure you turn on your microphones. Councelor Crretch, I'm here. Karen Burke, present. Graham Carroll, present. Andrew Douglas, present. Lyn Lstead, present. Andy McLaren, present. Stephan Spalnick, present. That's great. Thank you everyone. And we'll move on to our approval of our agenda. May I please have a mover and a seconder to approve the agenda as presented. I see Graham and Lynn. And before we move forward with a vote, are there any amendments from committee members to the agenda? Go ahead, Graham. I would like to uh discuss the possibility about having someone from the indigenous community come in to address our committee on the experiences of that community and how it can affect our decision-m on heritage. So through the chair we can add that as item 11.5 for discussion. Thank you very much. Um as we move to vote is there anyone opposed to um the agenda? Seeing none that item is carried. Are there any declarations of interest today? Seeing none, we'll move on to the approval of our meeting minutes from the previous meeting, February 20th, 2026. May I have a mover and a seconder to adopt the minutes of the previous meeting as presented? I see Stefan and Karen. Is there any discussion on the meeting minutes before we move forward? Seeing none, um, as we move to vote, is there anyone opposed? Seeing none, that item is carried. Item seven is our items of information. May I please have a mover and a seconder to receive the items for information? Item 7.1 to 7.4. I see Andy and Lynn. And before we move to vote, is there any discussion on any of these items? Seeing no items, we will move to the vote. Is there anyone opposed? Seeing none, that item is carried. We now move to our items for consideration. And our first item on the agenda is 8.1 PD24140B, which is the Melville Park West Heritage Conservation District Plan in Dundas Ward 13. I'd like to call upon Alyssa Golden, cultural heritage program lead, to provide the committee with a presentation for this item. Welcome, Alyssa. Thank you, chair. again, uh, Alyssa Golden, cultural heritage program lead, and I'm pleased to be here today to present to you on the Melville Park West Heritage Conservation District plan. I want to start by just thanking our consultants who are here from MHBC. We have Nick and Dan on the line. Um, thanks for all their hard work throughout the HCD study and plan phases and for working with staff and integrating feedback from the community on what is our first new HD plan in the city of Hamilton since the year 2000. So, let's start with a bit of a refresher on what a heritage conservation district is. I know many of our community members are very familiar uh but for those that might be listening in um an HCD heritage conservation district is an area comprised of a concentration of heritage resources with special character or historical associations that distinguishes itself from its surroundings. HCDs are protected by designation under part five of the Ontario Heritage Act. Designation helps a municipality manage and guide future change in a district and district plans are adopted for each HCD with policies and guidelines for conservation, protection, and enhancement of the area's special character. Heritage permits are then required when changes are proposed within a district. This includes demolition, new construction, exterior alterations visible from the public rightway, um, including landscape alterations. And there are two main phases of work when designating a heritage conservation district. Phase one of this project was the heritage conservation district study. And this work started in earnest in two in 2023 and wrapped up in the fall of 2024. And the HC study involved assessing the character of the area and determining that it was worthy of being protected as an HCD, identifying an HCD boundary, and setting the objectives for the proposed heritage district and related plan. And when council approved the HCD study report in September 2024, they confirmed the recommended boundary for the Melville Park West District, which is shown here. And as a reminder, the HCD study categorized each property of heritage value or interest as either contributing A or B properties and also identified those properties within the proposed district that did not contribute to the historic character of the area. And a list of all of the properties in the proposed HCD and their contributing status can be found in appendix A of the plan attached to this report. and summarized in the map provided here. Phase two of this project was the development of a heritage conservation district plan which is now in its final stages. Two open houses were held during this phase including an initial openhouse to introduce the plan phase of the project and a second openhouse where feedback was received on a draft plan. The heritage district plan itself includes contents that are required under the Ontario Heritage Act, including the plan objectives, statement of heritage significance, and list of heritage attributes, all of which were determined during the study phase of this project. And most importantly, the plan outlines the policies and guidelines for managing change in the proposed district, including how to balance the conservation of heritage character of the area while guiding compatible new development and change, including alterations, additions, and demolitions. Part two of the plan outlines these policies and guidelines for managing change in the district. And I'll note that the Ontario Heritage Act also now allows municipalities to identify types of work that are exempt from the heritage permit process. And these are included in part three of the plan and also summarized in a chart included in appendix D of the plan. So the policies and guidelines in the final HCD plan were informed by feedback from the community and property owners throughout the consultation process of this project. A summary of the consultation uh conducted throughout this project is attached as appendix B to this staff report. A summary of the comments and questions that we received on the draft plan and staff's responses to those questions and comments is attached as appendix C. And finally, we did receive one objection letter that was received on behalf of four separate property owners within the proposed district. A copy of that letter is attached as appendix D and staff's response to that letter is also included in that summary in appendix C. So the Melville Park West Heritage Conservation District has been determined to meet the provincial criteria for designation and the proposed plan for the district has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Ontario Heritage Act. So staff recommend that the municipal heritage committee receive the district plan today and advise council to designate the district in accordance with the plan. In terms of next steps, the recommendation to designate the district will be considered by planning committee on May 5th. This will be a public meeting under the Ontario Heritage Act. Council will then consider the recommendations and if approved would adopt the HCD plan and pass a bylaw designating the district. If that passes, staff will then issue notices of bylaw passing sent to all the property owners affected by the proposed district. And this would start a 30-day objection period under the act. And for just some additional clarity, and I can bring this back up later if there's questions, a flowchart is provided here to show the next steps and process for that uh in terms of the ejection period and what happens if any objections or appeals are received. And that concludes my presentation today. Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Uh along with me today as well as I mentioned are the folks from MHBC. if there's any more detailed questions that staff can't can't address. Thank you very much for that, Alyssa. Uh, may I have a mover and a seconder to put the report on the floor before we ask questions? I see Graham and Andy. Okay. Um, so do we have any questions from the committee? Graham, just want to say thank you for the great report, great effort in getting this area that was vital to be designated to be designated. We have to preserve our heritage wherever we can and heritage districts are probably the best way to do it. Thank you very much for your work. Are there any other questions or comments, Karen? Thank you. I'd like to also add my thank you for uh the a lot of work that went into this over the past couple years. You could tell and it's very well thought out and very well researched. I totally appreciate that. Um, if I I realize that there are a few people who are um raised some objections. I'm wondering if it does get to the point where it goes to the OOLT and they still have concerns, could there be one solution that a few properties be cleaved out of the district? Would that be an option through the chair? Um, so I am aware of our existing heritage districts having at the time of their passing similar challenges and in some cases properties were removed from the boundaries of those districts because they were on the edge of the districts. Um, I'll maybe defer to uh the folks from MHBC here today just in terms of their more recent experience with appeals, but I believe if I'm not mistaken, you would not be able to remove a property that's in the middle of the district. Um, so maybe I'll just look over to Nick or Dan for some additional feedback there. Thanks, Alyssa. Uh, yeah, that is something that comes up every now and then when we're working on projects. And what we try to do is resolve any concerns with perhaps changes to um, uh, policies and guidelines. Uh, we find sometimes there's certain things that are of interest or concern to people. So, uh, we try and do that rather than, um, adjusting the boundary. as you said, if a property is in the middle of the district, it's it's really hard to do. Uh but sometimes, as in the past, you noted, there's been some changes around the outside. So, we'd have to see what happens, see what the appeal process looks like, and then we can go from there to try and resolve it. Okay. Thank you. And I mean, really, with all of those properties, to only get four concerns is pretty good or even one concern in one in one letter. So, very good. Good work. Thank you. Do we have any other questions or comments? Seeing none, um we'll move to our vote. So the vote will be to receive the presentation and approve the recommendations contained within the report. Um so as we move to vote, is there anyone opposed? Seeing none, that item is carried. And again, I'll just express my thanks as well to Alyssa and to the staff team and then to MHBC for all the work that that's it's an amazing amount of work that had to go into getting that done and and 26 years is a long time to to have a heritage conservation district. So we really do appreciate that. So um we'll now move on to item 8.2 is PD26054 is our monthly report on proactive listings for the municipal heritage register March 2026. I may have a mover and a seconder to put the report on the floor. I see Andrew and Stefan. So the report recommendations include the following. that staff be directed to list the following properties on the Municipal Heritage Register as non-desated properties as outlined in report PED26054 in accordance with section 27 of the Ontario Heritage Act. And those properties include 15 Victoria a Victoria Street North, 269 King William Street, 271 King William Street, 273 King William Street, and 275 King William Street. Are there any questions from the committee? Go ahead, Graeme. the four properties on King Williams Street. Is that that twotory with the Second Empire type roof? Is there any threat to those properties that you know of or just a general concern through the chair again, Alyssa Golden, cultural program lead? Um, so the prompt for staff reviewing those properties and bringing them forward as a part of our proactive listings is that they were currently up for sale, um, and is being advertised as a an entire block for redevelopment. Any other questions or clarifications? We'll now move to vote. Is there any um, vote to approve the recommendations as contained within the report? Is there anyone opposed? Seeing none, that item is carried. Uh, I will now hand the chair over to Graham. Okay. 9.1 the Hamilton Municipal Heritage Committee's Heritage Recation Recognition Awards for 20 2025 26. Uh, so Elsa, please introduce your motion. Um, so we have our annual heritage recognition awards and this year we have uh changed the date just because of a conflict with the Ontario Heritage Conference that will be coming up in June. So this year's event is being moved to September. So our motion is that the Hamilton Municipal Heritage Committee's Heritage Recognition Awards be held on Thursday, September 24th, 2026 at 7 p.m. at BridgeWorks, 200 Caroline Street, Hamilton, Ontario. So we have our list of awards that will be following this um in in the future meetings. Um, but this is just to get the event on our schedule. Okay. Can I have a seconder? I see Karen. Anyone have any questions or discussions for this event? Seeing none, may I have a a mover and a second to receive the support? Sorry. You can just call for the vote. I'll just call for the vote. You have it written here in my script. Is there anyone opposed to this motion? Seeing none, the motion is passed. So now we move on to 9.2, the designation blocking program. Alyssa, can you please introduce your motion? Um some time ago um this item was sent to the um education and communication working group to do a review and the members have over a number of of um months have gone through and looked at existing plaing programs because the plaing program for the city of Hamilton had been dissolved and there's no active plaing project uh property um heritage property plaing policy for for the city of Hamilton. Um so the objective was to look at what the existing state is, how do we deal with the backlog, and what potentially could be um a policy for the city. Um, we would like to put forward a motion that staff be directed to report back to the Hamilton Municipal Heritage Committee in Q uh 4 2026 with a report outlining recommendations to address the current backlog and future state of plaquing properties designated under part four of the Ontar Ontario Heritage Act, including the feasibility of implementing a municipally funded program. Does anyone have any questions on this motion? Okay. Seeing n then sorry through the chair. We'll just need a seconder first. Oh, sorry about that. Okay. Anyone second to receive this motion? I see Karen. There we go. Back to the discussion. Any discussion? Nope. Anyone opposed to this motion? Seeing none, that is passed. Excellent job, Graham. All right, we move on to our general information items. Um 11.1 is our winter 2026 McMaster student practicum project presentation. I'd like to call upon Scott Dickinson to uh introduce the team through the chair. Scott Dickinson, cultural heritage planning technician. As uh most of the members of this committee are aware and for anyone listening, each year in the spring, the history department at the University of McMaster has a history practicum course where upper level or upper year students can u partner with a local heritage organization like a museum, an archive or the city of Hamilton uh to undertake a practical project that will teach them about working in the heritage field as a profession and hopefully produce something usable or at least the sort of thing that uh that that organization uses in their day-to-day work. So happy to introduce our two students this year who will talk more about their particular project uh Cody and Zang. So, we'll just get that PowerPoint loaded up. Hello. Hello. Thank you. Thank you, Scott. Um, yeah, my name is Cody Storms and, uh, this is my partner, Zeffing. Um, we're from McMaster and a fourth year class. Um, the purpose of the class, yeah, it's just as Scott was saying, to get some hands-on experience in uh kind of local history and uh try to produce something meaningful. Um, yeah, we're uh we're just we're both history students and uh yeah, my name is Fans. I'm fourth year honor history student at McMaster. Yeah, just interesting the local history here. So to start off with um our area is a neighborhood in Corktown uh bound by Forest, Houston, Charlton, and John Street. Um the purpose of this section is to uh research and investigate the historical context of uh this area which we defined as the uh Rashik block. Um the purpose of this report is to serve as a preliminary uh project to hopefully get further research done and maybe a uh designation. Uh there's a lot of information here, but I'm not going to read it all. But um obviously Corktown is one of Hamilton's four original neighborhoods uh with a mostly Irish immigrant population. Our block specifically is uh notable by a early working but later kind of more middle class community um definable by the church of the incession. Yeah, church of the session uh located at 64 forest and the rash house located at uh 46 forest. Um, our block is defined by mostly uh Queen Anne and uh a Gothic style, architectural style uh Gothic revival, sorry. Uh with two to three story uh brick and limestone buildings uh the most yeah they have a historical value just because they uh kind of represent a surviving uh residential neighborhood. So on on February 5th, 2006, we conduct the on-site surveys uh of the study area by walking around the block and observing each buildings. So we record key details such as architectural styles, building height and construction period and building use. Uh so we also use the city uh city of Hamilton heritage mapping tools to identify the existing heritage status. Uh we found that the block including 10 properties most were originally residential buildings but today many have been converted into a office uh while one remaining is a religious buildings. So we then uh evaluate the conditions of the each buildings using three categories uh preserved modified and compromised. So all building our studies were classified as modified uh meaning in the um although the they have had been update the original architecture features are still visible. So um we assess how each buildings contribute to the heritage district. Uh we use three categories uh contributing a contributing b and non-contributing. So contributing a buildings are are those two that play a key roles in def defining uh the characters of the area. In our case, this is including the church of the ascension and and the restrict house um which which are historically uh significant and already recognized under the Ontario uh heritage act and contributing B buildings are still representative of the area but they play a more supportive roles. Uh most most of the properties in the block fall into these categories uh as as they reflect the late 19th centuries residential c uh characters but are less individually significant. Yeah. Uh based after that uh we were then tasked with defining the boundary area for our uh HD block and we determined all 10 buildings uh were contributing to the block itself. So we were able to demonstrate a perfect rectangular uh block without any exclusions of the uh for each individual property of the nine uh criteria of the 906 Ontario uh act. The three that were most uh I say significant were uh criteria one which all 10 properties uh represented a specific uh character in the architectural styles. Uh criteria 7 um which was contextual value and all 10 properties did that. And then finally, criteria nine with only two properties being recognized as a landmark being the Church of the Ascension and the Rashik House. Mainly because they have already been designated and uh therefore are known in the neighborhood and the church for its uh scale. Out of the uh uh total 90 potential categor uh criteria for all 10 blocks, uh 62 of the 90 uh were met, which is significant as it demonstrates that in our study area, uh majority of the buildings all meet at least or exceed the minimum uh required to be recognized as heritage buildings. Uh our study area then demonstrates a rich and valuable history that contributes to the preservation of Corkdown and the city of Hamilton as a surviving late 19th century uh workingass middle class residential block which already features like I said two officially designated properties. Um therefore uh we suggest that it has the potential to be considered as a heritage block itself um with all 10 properties. And uh yeah, so that that's all we have today. Um we appreciate uh having your time and um and thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. Uh if there's any questions, I guess I can I'll open it up to that. Thank you very much for that presentation. That was great work that you've done. Uh we have councelor Crutch. Any other speakers we should add to the list? Lynn and Graham. Thanks. Just wanted to thank you for doing this work. Um I think it's really important. Usually when people think about heritage in the downtown, well, let's start at a broader view. Usually when people think about heritage in Hamilton, they think of areas that are not necessarily downtown. Then when they think about and realize, oh wait, most of the heritage assets in the city are actually in downtown. Then they think, oh, they must all be in the Duran neighborhood. Of course, the answer is nope. Um, most of the buildings in the heritage inventory are outside the Duran neighborhood. And it's good that you're looking at the Corktown neighborhood, which has frankly been a more working-class neighborhood. As someone who once lived in a house in Corktown, I can tell you from the inside out that some of the uh sort of died in the cloth uh Irish brick laying techniques have stood the test of time uh even with some of the unconventional. And so I really appreciate you looking at this area and thinking about bringing this forward as a heritage conservation district because I think the Corktown neighborhood deserves as much recognition as other neighborhoods do in terms of protecting these assets. Also, if you look at the neighborhood's topography and you look at the Duran neighborhood's topography, what you really clearly see is that during urban renewal, in the Duran neighborhood, a lot of buildings were torn down to make way for more density, which makes sense. Like, we had people in the city that had somewhere to live. They needed to have a place, and so we had to build up. And there were some choices made, I'm sure, that if uh we could go back, we wouldn't have made. But I think surrounding this entire context is something you didn't talk about, which are apartment buildings, right? So it's a massive area for density and so focusing on a heritive heritage conservation district or thinking about it from that perspective and trying to define one here makes sense because there are there is this pocket here around the church. Church is also in a bit of a weird state in case you don't know where there's multiple different buildings on the church property. Some dating back quite a distance uh in time and then some being much newer and there's discussions about what to do with those. So I think it's a it's a worthwhile conversation. So thank you for doing this work. I certainly as an undergraduate student myself who also minored in history, I would never have been taking on something like this as part of my studies and so I just congratulate you on on the effort. Yeah, thank you for coming. Thank you very much. Uh Lynn, you're next. Yeah, I just want to congratulate you on this great a lot of work and I appreciate all the work that went into it. I was just curious uh if you had a chance or as one of the 906 uh items if you came across any important people associated with any of these. Uh yeah, we uh there was a couple actually uh very uh interesting and and probably significant people. Um located on one I think 87 Houston uh yeah was Adam Brown. Um he he played a significant part in uh politics around the early uh 20th century. Uh and he he resided yeah in a couple years and um and then at 189 I think Houston was the uh Ontario Business College as well. Um which if I'm not mistaken, Adam Brown I think or someone around there was a principal at the school itself. Um, and then you have uh Frederick Rastri who lived at 46 Houston uh 46 Forest and uh he's a very prominent uh architect in Hamilton and worked on the first uh Sunday school edition of the church um which he lived like two houses away from. Um, beyond that, there were some other people like on Charlton, uh, WFJ Gordon, I'm pretty sure W there were some people there like a a Freemason, um, who for like 50 years served as a Freemason um, who operated a business in the block as well. So definitely a lot of interesting significant people to the block to Cork Town and then Hamilton just as a city itself. Thank you very much. Go ahead, Graham. I'd like to thank you guys for taking the interest on our city, coming to our university and looking at an area that you probably have no attachment to. I'm assuming you're out of town students. Uh yeah, actually funny enough, I go to uh my therapist office is on the block. So, I've been going there for for a couple years now. Um even as a out of stu out of town student, but I was already a slightly familiar with the block, but not anywhere near now. Yeah. So, it's great that the youth of today is coming in looking at a city you have no connection to, understanding the importance of our heritage and hopefully looking at protecting it through your recommendation and the heritage car heritage district. So, thank you very much for putting the time in. We really appreciate your efforts. Thank you very much. Yeah, it's it's been great. A lot of history. A lot of history. did and we I don't even know if we necessarily scratched the the surface with the little bit of time that we had, but it was definitely a good great experience. Uh Karen, uh thank you for the presentation and uh the research you did. Very interesting. I was wondering just looking at these pictures um were you tempt I realized that your assignment was the that block, but were you tempted to look beyond that and maybe even across the road and see some other things that were of interest? Uh yeah, we did a little bit of research with the uh the St. Joe's Hospital um located to the north, I want to say it is, but um and then on the east side, I want to say um near the James Street, there was a block there uh I noticed when I was doing a little bit extra research that there were a couple buildings there that were being looked at at one point as uh designation sites. I'm not too sure where that went beyond that. So we did a little bit of research with that. But then on the bordering side of forest a lot of like you said apartment buildings and stuff are there. So for the most part uh we did look at one uh preliminary search u on the I want to say south side of St. Joe's um that I'm not sure if it went all the way like to completion or not but we looked at that. So there are surrounding areas that have a little bit of extra research to there. Um but we noticed just the concentration of our block uh stood out specifically uh compared to the fragments kind of around it. But there's definitely some more out there. Yeah. No, thank you. That's great. Is there any other question? Go ahead, Andy. Yeah, through the chair just um curious is there a uh timeline on this like how long the project is and for when we can find uh findings of that you do in your research uh yeah I'll uh we'll we'll uh talk about that but uh we started about in January finished about now so we've handed in our report um today yesterday and today um so it should be accessible at some point uh soon at least our preliminary research. Um, yeah. So, we had a couple like about two two or three months. This is like Yeah. Last week and then we have another school presentation on the April 8th. Okay. Yeah. Excellent. Thanks for all your hard work. Thank you. That's all I have. Thanks. So, that's great. That's a lot of work to get done in a very short period of time. Um, are there any other questions before we move to receive? Seeing none, um, if there's no other discussions, may I have a mover and seconder to receive the the presentation? I see Karen and Lynn. And is there anyone opposed? Seeing none, that item is carried. Thank you again for the presentation. It was wonderful. Um, we'll now move on to our item 11.2, which is an update on the Ontario Heritage Conference being held in Hamilton on June 18th to 20th, 2026. Um, so both Graham and myself have been representing the municipal heritage committee on the local organizing committee and we're very very happy to announce that the registration is open. Um, Ken, who's been volunteering, his time is relieved as well. Um, but the registrations are open. Um, the um, the local organizing group has really come together to put together some really um, exciting opportunities for those days of the event. Um so the uh the early bird if anyone is looking to purchase tickets early bird will end on April 30th um but continue uh sales of the tickets up until the time of the conference. Um so we're looking at three days. Uh the Thursday is the opening event where people are coming into the city. Um so we're going to be hosting a public event at Magnolia Hall and that event is going to be called Reimagining Hamilton's Waterfront Adaptive Reuse, Remediation and Commemoration of Industrial Heritage. So, we're having a key um speakers panel at Magnolia Hall just to bring people in. Um again, both a public event, but also available to the conference attendees. And then there's uh some events taking place afterwards. But Friday is really the the first big kickoff day of the conference. Um we've got two for the conference, we have two key locations. So, we'll be starting the Friday at Leyuna station as our hub. Um having a keynote that's looking at some key projects. um the Niagara uh power generation station and its adaptive reuse as well as our own local uh cotton factory and how those those properties went from being industrial use to relatively vacant and unused to the success stories that they are today. Um so that'll kick off the Friday and then we'll move into a number of really interesting sessions and walking tours. Um we have walking tours set up to explore the workers arts and heritage and the industrial north uh trail looking at central uh neighborhood and the industrial properties and adaptive reed properties in that neighborhood and then we're lucky enough to get a tour of the coplepply buildings and then taking the tour of historic James Street North. Um so that's that's Friday and then we'll end with our gala dinner. So um if you look online you'll be able to see all of the various sessions that we have set up for that day. Then on Saturday, um Saturday is going to start at the Sherman Avenue uh industrial adaptive reuse area. So we're going to be starting at the Playhouse Theater with a keynote and a very topical um item is going to be uh the impact of insurance on heritage properties, both the myths and the um the facts about that. And we'll have uh people from the uh trust as well as the insurance board of Canada that are also helping to to talk about that topic. And that'll lead us into a day of exploration on um Sherman Avenue. We'll be uh heading over for tours and open studio in uh the cotton factory as well as some bus tours that are going to take uh tours of both the industrial um areas and over to the steam and tech museum and the beach canal lighthouse. So, lots of opportunities to explore what that city has to offer, explore the civic museums and and our heritage spaces. the two days on the on the Friday we'll have a marketplace for vendors and our sponsors um at the conference and then on the Saturday there'll be a traditional trades fair at the cotton factory. So um there'll be opportunity for people to have one-on-one conversations look at again the studios at uh cotton factory and get to see some of the the craft craft people and uh and what they are uh doing in the city. So lots of great things. We invite you to check out the website. So it it's available both on the Hamilton Burlington Society of Architects website as well as the um Community Heritage Ontario website. So we can send that out to all of the the members so they have that. Um, and I get just anything else that I missed. Again, just actually I will before I will look at my list here, but just a thank you to the members of our local organizing um committee, which is a very long list, but it it's so um thank you to the Hamilton Burlington Society of Architects, the Hamilton Municipal Heritage Committee, the City of Hamilton Planning and Economic Development Department, uh the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, Hamilton Regional Branch, and the Hamilton Heritage Foundation. Then we also have the related organizations of the community heritage Ontario, Ontario Association of Heritage Professionals and the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario. So, lots of lots of uh people involved in volunteering to to make this a really u excellent weekend for everyone to explore Hamilton. And uh just one last thing is thank you to all of our sponsors. Um we've had an incredible response to um businesses and organizations and and individuals that have put their money forward again to make this the most successful event that we can for to for people to explore from and people will be coming from all across Ontario. We've we've seen interest from from uh many of the municipal heritage committees and professionals and and heritage uh companies, heritage related trades and and companies. So it's it's going to be a very fun event. So we invite you to uh to get out and again those tickets are the registration is open now. It'll be open up until the time of the conference and early bird will end April 30th. Are there any questions? Council, I got one comment. Yeah, that's Yeah, I do realize you've said uh go to the internet to find out more information, but if it's possible, you could share a direct link with the legislative coordinator who could share it with everyone on the committee because I know that it's tough to take all that that all in sort of by ear. Um, for instance, the opening night is happening event at Magnolia Hall's happening at 6:30, but there's like a million little things that are going on. So the schedule could be sent out to everyone to make sure we have the opportunity to attend. That'd be great. I'll try and be there for as much of it as I can. Yeah, that's fantastic. You know, we'll get that link sent out. Um we also have an Instagram so that we're going to be posting updates. There'll be more and more things shared and the the speakers list and whatnot. So that that's great. And go ahead, Graham. Just wanted to tell our two mastery students there is a possibility of a student rate where you may get sponsored by the Ontario or concert CHL. CHL. They are sponsoring four spots or something like that. Uh it three. Yep. Um any other questions? Seeing none, uh may I have a mover and a second to to receive the update? I see Karen and Andy. And as we move to vote, is there anyone opposed? Seeing none, that item is carried. We now move on to item 11.3 which is our discussion respecting reducing demolition by neglect notice of motion introduced at the planning committee on March 24th 2026. Uh councelor crunch if you'd like to introduce the item. Yes, it was circulated to everybody so you have a copy and the reason why we're talking about it today is because I promised I would let you know when it was up for discussion. I purposely left it as a notice of motion so that I could make sure it came here and there was an opportunity for members to look at it. So my really only request is I'm not going to read it out to you. Now everyone here reads and I will send it's been sent to you. So have a look through the motion and if there's things you think oof I don't understand that or that doesn't make sense or can we change the language there. I want this to be as as sensible as possible to people, easy to read and make sense, and I don't want to miss something. And then later on, we say, "O um I really wish there was something." That goes for all the staff that are here, too. If anyone sees something and they think, you know, what does that mean? Or could we add something else? Just throw me an email and we'll do that. It's going to come back to the planning committee in April and mid April. I don't remember exactly what date, but mid April. So, that means I've got to have the revisions made to it. It has to be posted to the agenda the week before. So, the beginning of April. So really, next week is the target time for getting comments back. So if you could send any comments you have to me next week or even the week after, that'd be really, really helpful to have so I can make sure that they're incorporated. The goal of this is to just change the way that we're approaching demolition by neglect. Whether it ends up with us actually hiring someone in house or not isn't really the main feature. The point of that discussion from before is like to be frank with you having a engineer sitting around doing heritage specific things may not get that may not be a desire that the that really works out as you know um desire is the wrong word but we might hire someone they may not have enough work to be doing. How does that work? Is there a point in having an engineer on staff or is it about changing the approach that we use with engineers? The law does allow us a lot of leeway. So, I'll give you a brief summation of what I've learned so far, which is primarily that if there are safety issues with buildings, and I'll just give my own personal experience so that I'm not trying to, you know, talk about something else or put anybody else in a in a weird spot by talking about a situation, but when I was standing in front of the buildings that collaped in Gore Park, right, I could visibly see on the day of the collapse or I guess the day before of the collapse that the the side wall did look a little bulgier than normal, right? We don't have a process right now that's really robust for me to be able to figure out, okay, so what do I do with that information? How do we enable people who can come down here and say, "Yeah, that is that is actually a severe safety issue." And then give them the authority to walk into the building that day and say, "Hey, you know, this has to be addressed." That's the the missing piece that we have there. The laws exist to allow us to do a lot of this work, but sometimes we require the permission of a property owner, for instance, to go in if the situation isn't a public safety issue. How do we negotiate that? How do we do that? How do we use the law to the fullest extent so that when we see situations that are occurring, we can get in there immediately and deal with them? And I'll say to you that the culture of bylaw enforcement has been for a very long time around the word of compliance. And if you hear that word, don't know what it means. It just means that what we've been doing as a culture in bylaw for a very very long time has been seeking compliance. So I'll give you another example. If there's um a building that runs out of air conditioning in the middle of the summer, right? um if there's an elevator that's broken uh in a building and people need to use the elevator, our approach has been seeking compliance. We're working with the property owner, the landlord, whoever it might be to try and get that thing done. And we tend to be relatively lenient with that kind of culture of compliance. I'm moving to a culture of enforcement and and more sort of property standards enforcement and finding people and just getting the work done as soon as humanly possible. So saying, well, why don't we just go in deal with the issue, get our own people in there to do it if it if it's urgent. And I'll say to the city's credit that has absolutely happened recently. So we've already started doing that based on the reporting city has done with uh buildings like the Canon knitting mills. So the Cannitty Mills has a number of public orders against it. Um this is not a secret I'm sharing with you. This is just public information. Um they have a number of orders against them. Those orders were complied with in in a time a timely fashion. So the city had to go in and take care of the issues themselves by hiring people to do it. I will say to you, one of the conundrums here is that sometimes you're pouring money into an unlimited well. Um, meaning, let's just say that there's a building out there somewhere and it's, you know, not in a good shape, right? Let's just say it's kind of been abandoned. Let's just say the property taxes aren't being paid on the building and it's up for a tax sale. So when we're throwing a bunch of money into something and putting it on the tax for that owner to pay, the expectation psychologically for the city is that owner is going to pay that eventually. They decided to pay their taxes and the building goes up for a tax sale, right? We're now in this three-year process waiting to get our money back and we have to go through that that that process. So just so you know how that works, it's a pretty exhausting process. And then if somebody comes forward and say at the last minute throw some cash down to satisfy their property taxes, the city sold out out the money it's owed and waits three more years for that to to come back to them or so forth and so on. So we're looking at all of that um ball of different legislative things and all the knots inside of that. So it's a little more complex I think people generally will appreciate and understand is that the provincial government I would say in almost every area uh have draconian laws about property. I will say that absolutely they do have draconian laws about property that are based on things that were developed in the 19th century. So we're still struggling through a lot of that and a lot of the kinds of buildings that are downtown um vacant buildings across the city are also in a context that's totally different to the 19th century. So the majority of people who live in the neighborhoods where there are the most heritage assets are tenants, right? So nearly 80% of the people who live downtown rent their homes for if people know that 80% nearly rent their homes. So that shifted from being an entirely property ownership based system when it was built in the 19th century. So we have never actually ever ever ever as a city or a province contended with that issue. we've kind of just been like, well, we'll just throw a bylaw in here or something over here and hope hope it's all going to work out. So, it's not working out, right? Because we don't have that same cohesive approach, a same similar approach. If you have 19 historic Victorian homes in a row on a block, right? The people who are all preoccupied with that activity and living in them as a as a growing as a concern are kind of addressing a lot of these issues on their own because it's a community response. when you have one or two that are all scattered and split up all over the place, many property owners turning them over like the James Street Baptist Church is a great example of that. It's classic textbook example of that in a profitering private market development situation where it goes from um in 15 years from being worth $600,000 to being worth $27 million to being worth $13 million. When you have that going on with tiny parcels of property, right, there's immense pressures on this that the city's never had to contend with before. So, we need new tools. Um, and city staff have already put forward some good recommendations. What I'm trying to do here is just be more toothsome as a counselor about it and say, um, can we do more? And they frankly need that direction from council for us to be able to say we want to shift the culture. We want to be a little more toothome about this. So that's the goal. Love your feedback. Thank you. Thank you, counselor. Uh, do we have any questions or comments right now? Uh, Andrew, go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to thank the counselor uh very much for taking this forward. It is great to see action finally happening on this and I can't wait to see uh what comes of it. Any other comments or questions? Seeing none, uh may I have a mover and a second to receive? I see Graham and Stefan. And as we move to vote, is there anyone opposed? Seeing none, that item is carried. And again, just a reminder to please get those those comments to uh councelor Crouch by by next week. Thank you very much for that. And we'll move on to our item 11.4 is our heritage building and landscape watch list. Um as are there any additions to the list that anyone would like to make? Uh Graham and go ahead Graham. Or mine's more a question about removing one from the list. Okay. As we know the uh the commercial block, also known as coughly noise and Randall is almost done its renovation. I no longer feel it's uh under threat, so we may as well take it off the list. We can do that. Uh so Graham has put that forward. Is there a seconder, Lynn? And as we move to vote, is there anyone opposed to removing that building? Seeing none, can you just confirm for that the the address uh 56 York Boulevard and 6376 McNab Street North. That's on the yellow list. Do we have any property updates today? No property updates. All right. Um so may I have a mover and a second just to receive this item? I see Karen and Graham. And as we move to vote, is there anyone opposed? See none. That item is carried. Uh and item 11.5 was our added item. Um so it's in regards to comments from the indigenous community. If you just like to clarify, this week we had a heritage permit review subcommittee meeting and we had a pre-conultation regarding uh a change of views of King George School on Gage Avenue. Uh it wants to be turned into an indigenous hub and indigenous housing on the property. and it became obvious there's different viewpoints on how we look at these kind of buildings and I would like to have someone come in and do a presentation to talk about the different experiences. So those of us who weren't affected by colonialism and the uh residential schools or other harms that were done to the indigenous community can maybe get a little bit of a an eye opener or to look through the lens of the harm to community. So if we can get someone in who can explain it to us at a nice way or not that be nice have to explain what their harms were and how we can help reduce those harms because it is a matter of reconciliation, right? We have a driving force to try to correct ourselves. So hopefully we can find someone who's a a good source, good resource to train us and teach us how to look at things in their perspective. Uh through the chair, Ken Quite, director of heritage and urban design. Um very complex and important issue, Graham. We deal with it on a lot of things, including a lot of our planning applications. Um and we do have an indigenous relations office at the city. Um we will reach out to them and see what they feel is best in terms of coming um here and and making that uh kind of training education piece would maybe be a better way to to talk about it and see what tools are available and what resources are available to accomplish that and report back at the next uh the next meeting. Perfect. That that'll 100% cover what I'm requesting. Thank you. Is there any discussion on that item or anything that anyone would like to add to the request? I was just going to suggest that perhaps it be um expanded to include the subcommittees then as well since they're the ones who are also making recommendations if that's possible. Okay. Uh any other discussion on this? If not, we'll move to vote to receive. May have a mover in a second to receive. So, I see Graham and Lynn. And as we move to vote, is there anyone opposed? Seeing none, that item is carried. Um, do we have any staff updates or new business? If not, we'll move to adjournment. Um, there being no further business, the Hamilton Municipal Heritage Committee is now adjourned at 12:53. The next meeting will be uh April 17th, 226 at 12:00. So we will see everyone then. Um and everyone enjoy the the holiday coming up and happy Easter.