How Heritage Works in Prince George

Not as boring as it sounds, I promise

Heritage needs help to survive the 21st century

I think we all agree that heritage, whether it’s tangible buildings and places or living traditions, needs to be safeguarded if we want it to last for the future. I use the word safeguard intentionally; not conserve which implies working with the fabric of heritage, and not preserve that connotes freezing heritage in time. I like the idea of safeguarding — to protect, shield and defend heritage from all the threats of our modern, urbanizing, globalized world. Our duty of care, to not be negligent….

It starts with legal protection

The BC Heritage Conservation Act is the legal instrument used to protect the province’s heritage and archaeological sites, augmented by the Local Government Act and the more recent Community Charter. Together they place the safeguarding of heritage in the hands of local City government. The stated aim of these statutes is to enable municipalities and regional districts to better integrate heritage conservation activities into the mainstream of development and community planning.

Who does the actual “heritage work”?

The Local Government Act and the Community Charter authorize local governments to form a “Community Heritage Commission” (CHC). Prince George’s CHC was formed under the Prince George Heritage Commission Bylaw No. 8133, 2008 with the following Scope and Duties:

• The Commission may advise Council on any matter relating to heritage conservation, as set out in Part 27 of the Local Government Act.

• The Commission shall investigate and report to Council on any building, structure, land, water, natural feature or flora within the City which the Commission considers may have historic, architectural, geological, scenic or other heritage significance to the City, or any such site referred to it by the Council.

• The Commission may undertake heritage education and awareness activities.

• The Commission may review any matter and make recommendations to Council regarding input to any agency relating to any heritage site outside the City, as it determines appropriate within the context of heritage conservation in general.

• The Commission will, annually, review the Heritage Strategic Plan and make recommendations for changes, if appropriate, to Council.

And then a few points about the budget. Not so interesting….

The Prince George CHC currently has nine members, all of whom are volunteers, and meets four times a year. It has four working groups looking into the Heritage Register, Heritage Signs and Community Outreach and Capacity Building, all of which hold meetings between official CHC meetings.

How it all fits together…..

What are the tools at the disposal of the Heritage Commission?

The CHC have the following toolkit set out in the Local Government Act to safeguard Prince George heritage:

They can add items to the Heritage Inventory

This is an unofficial list of properties maintained by the CHC; they are not legally protected and have not been researched or recorded - just identified during various community exercises — most notably a day long seminar held in 2009 as part of the Prince George Heritage Context Study — as heritage that people value and would like to see safeguarded. There are over 600 entries on the list; this is the only existing expression of what Prince George cares about as “heritage” even though it needs updating, with some items burnt down or otherwise lost.

Community Heritage Register

By resolution, our local government has established an official listing of properties identified as having heritage character or heritage value to the community. Items are nominated by members of the public or the CHC itself, recorded and evaluated by the CHC and then submitted to City Council for approval.

Register items are not legally protected, but being on the Register highlights them and allows the City to monitor them within the building and development process. To date there are fifteen heritage items on the Register: 12 buildings, 2 tree-lined streets and the site of the Nechako River Crossing.

Heritage Conservation Areas

Heritage Conservation Areas are used in the Official Community Plan (OCP) to provide long-term protection to areas with distinctive design or features that give them heritage significance. Change within Conservation Areas can then be controlled by application of design standards, alteration permits and other similar methods. Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park, including South Fort George School, is designated as a Heritage Conservation Area as are three individual downtown buildings — the Government Liquor Store, Ewart House, and the Old Post Office.

Archaeological Resource Potential Areas¹

Archaeological resource potential designation is intended to identify areas of high probability where archaeological sites are likely to occur based on Archaeological Overview Assessments. Such areas are included in official plans and can be protected from development impacts by site investigation and impact assessment requirements. A large area east of the Fraser labelled as the Airport Light Industrial Area in the OCP is designated as an Archaeological Resource Potential Area.

Heritage Covenants and Agreements

These are contractual agreements registered on the legal title of a property that limit redevelopment and define specific aspects of a heritage building that must be maintained. They permit additions but only those that are in accordance with heritage character and appearance.

Heritage Designation

A municipally designated heritage property is protected by a bylaw so that it cannot be altered or destroyed. Under the Local Government Act, the City, by bylaw, may designate properties as protected “if the local government considers that the property has heritage value or heritage character, or that designation of the property is necessary or desirable for the conservation of a protected heritage property.” This is the only way to provide legal protection to heritage; two properties have been designated in Prince George: the Old Post Office/Federal Government Building, and two facades of the Sixth Avenue Liquor Store.

This gives you an idea of the relative levels of protection that each of these “heritage tools” provides:

A few points I would like to make

So, as you can see, the real “heritage work” in Prince George is done by the Community Heritage Commission (Disclaimer: I am a member, though I am speaking here only for myself!) supported by the City. The current membership of the CHC is very active and motivated to make the Commission dynamic and relevant to the community.

The Commission is called the “Community” Heritage Commission because it is meant to represent the community and to use a community-led approach to identifying and safeguarding the heritage that most matters to the people of Prince George. An exercise in doing just that is high on the agenda for the CHC — watch out for some initiatives in the coming year to gather your feedback on what heritage matters to you!

Photo: participatory.org

In the past “heritage” has been defined primarily as historical or old buildings, an approach that does little to reflect the culture of past and present Prince George. So expanding this definition is also high on the CHC agenda — to include industrial sites, transport heritage, views, living skills and traditions, oral history holders and ???

In 2019 BC committed to UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and a process began to work with First Nations to reform the Act to better align with the UN document “including shared decision-making and the protection of First Nations cultural, spiritual, and heritage sites, and objects.” This process is still ongoing….

The Lheidli T’enneh have not been involved in the CHC and their heritage has not been included in past efforts, perhaps in part because of the almost exclusive focus on historical buildings as opposed to the wealth of intangible traditions which comprises their heritage As long as this situation continues we can not claim to be safeguarding all the heritage of Prince George, and so working with the Lheidli T’enneh to reflect their millennia of culture and heritage in this place is particularly high on the CHC agenda.

One of the responsibilities of the CHC which I listed above is to annually, review the Heritage Strategic Plan and make recommendations for changes, if appropriate, to Council. This plan was written in 2006 and is packed with background information, ideas, tools and recommendations — but as far as I am aware, annual reviews have not been carried out.

This quote shows how much has changed (and not changed) since it was written in 2006:

The use of heritage planning tools to preserve potential heritage sites has been limited, especially in the protection of privately-owned sites. The City has enacted municipal heritage designation of two sites, and there is a restrictive covenant on one other site (1624 7^th Avenue; Covenant Document No. PM2497 – 1998, permits additions that are in accordance with heritage character and appearance). The City also operates the historic Prince George Municipal Cemetery.

The City has never undertaken a heritage inventory (it has now), adopted a Heritage Register (it has now), negotiated a Heritage Revitalization Agreement nor adopted conservation standards and guidelines. The City's heritage program can therefore be assessed as being at a formative stage.

I feel that review and update of the Strategic Heritage Plan would be a useful exercise for the CHC, to update the information in the Plan and discuss whether any of the ideas put forward are relevant to today’s issues. I’m pretty sure the answer will be yes, particularly regarding the important role that heritage should be playing in urban revitalization, civic planning and how it should be integrated into the City’s planning processes (the topic of another newsletter in the future!)

A Quotation to Think About

This is a proposed Vision for a Heritage Program for Prince George from the 2006 Heritage Strategic Plan.

What do you think?

The City of Prince George will work with the entire community to establish a heritage conservation program that will strive to protect, through a balance of incentives and regulations, significant examples of our heritage. This program will recognize the public benefits of preserving tangible links to our historical development, and raise awareness of the value of heritage to our community.

The main goals of the Heritage Program will be:

1. Promoting Community Heritage Partnerships

2. Achieving Better Heritage Conservation

3. Improving Heritage Awareness and Communication

Personally, I think this is not a Vision that encapsulates what I envision for heritage in Prince George —- but it has made me start thinking seriously about what sort of Vision I would like to see……. how about you?

I would like to acknowledge that the land on which I live and work is the traditional unceded territory of the Lheidli T'enneh.

1. I am including archaeological heritage protection because I am an archaeologist, so how could I leave it out?! In BC archaeology is defined as anything pre-dating 1846 as opposed to heritage which is everything post-dating 1846. I have never come across this kind of definition/distinction anywhere else in the world, but it is was it is! All archaeological sites and material are managed at the Provincial level, but the City plays a large role in integrating archaeological site information into the planning and development process.