Heritage Burlington backs designating four Lakeshore Road and Ontario Street properties as a Jan. 1, 2027 deadline nears

What the committee recommended

At its September 29 meeting, the Heritage Burlington Advisory Committee heard consultants from The Biglieri Group present Cultural Heritage Evaluation Reports on the first five of 10 properties in Phase II of the City's Bill 23 heritage designation shortlist. The committee then carried a motion recommending that Council designate four of them under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act. The committee advises Council; designation itself is a Council decision.

The consultants' presentation explains that a property can be designated if it meets two or more of the nine criteria in Ontario Regulation 9/06 and is considered to hold cultural heritage value or interest; meeting only one is not enough. It describes the pumping station as a one-storey Edwardian Classicism building from 1915 with a "1915" date stone over the entrance, near Rambo Creek and the lake. It dates 1391 Ontario St. to about 1905 to 1908, 1419 Ontario St. to about 1911, and the Dalton-Bell House at 2187 Lakeshore Rd. to about 1891, describing the last as Queen Anne Revival with Edwardian influences.

Delegations spoke about two of the properties: speakers for 1454 Birch Ave. supported the finding that their property does not meet the criteria, and a speaker on 1419 Ontario St. asked the committee not to recommend designation. A committee member asked whether the delegates knew of the City's Heritage Property Tax Rebate Program for designated properties, and staff confirmed they had been advised of it.

The next five properties

Draft reports on the second batch are to be completed in October and November, and the committee approved a special meeting in November, date to be confirmed, to consider them. The consultants' timeline then has findings on both batches going to Committee of the Whole on December 7. The second batch, as listed in the presentation, is:

• St. John's Anglican Church, Dundas Street
• 1264 Lemonville Rd. (the Lemon Family Farmhouse)
• 5534 Guelph Line (the Thomas Colling Centennial Farmhouse)
• 566 Locust St. (the Harry Blessinger Retirement House)
• 524 Hager Ave. (the Bamford House)

Why there is a deadline

Bill 23, passed in 2022, changed the Ontario Heritage Act so that listing on a municipal heritage register is no longer open-ended. Under section 27(16), as amended in 2024, a property that was on a municipal register as of December 31, 2022 must be removed if the council has not given notice of intention to designate it by January 1, 2027, or a later prescribed date, and section 27(18) bars re-listing it for five years. Council approved evaluating these 10 properties as Phase II of the shortlist on April 21, 2026, after acting on an earlier shortlist of 27 properties in 2025.