GNCC Director of Policy & Government Relations Hugo Chesshire addresses St. Catharines City Council on June 9, 2025 | Picture credit: Kat Dodge / St. Catharines Downtown Association

On June 9, 2025, St. Catharines city staff presented a report to council advocating the creation of a Heritage Conservation District (HCD) covering the entire St. Catharines downtown core. All buildings within this proposed area would fall into the heritage district.

The proposed boundaries of the St. Catharines Heritage Conservation District (click to enlarge) | Picture credit: City of St. Catharines

The report was prepared in response to the Government of Ontario’s Bill 23, under which heritage designations for individual buildings are set to expire simultaneously in 2026.

The problems with a proposed heritage district are numerous. Instead of only applying to buildings of particular historical significance or aesthetic appeal, the designation would apply to all buildings in the district. The St. Catharines Downtown Association prepared its own report highlighting these many concerns.

Of great concern to the GNCC’s downtown members are the increased costs that a heritage district would result in, and the increased difficulties it poses for their operation.

As the GNCC noted in its presentation to St. Catharines City Council, businesses are already facing many burdens. On top of the social issues facing the downtown core are concerns over interest rates, supply chains, the labour market, tariffs, a Canadian-U.S. trade war, and fears of an imminent recession which many prominent economists and banks are predicting. This is not a good time to increase the burdens placed on downtown businesses.

• Financing is more difficult to obtain for heritage projects. Banks prefer new builds.
• Where financing is offered, interest rates are typically double those given to new builds – 11-13%, compared to 6-7% typically offered for new projects.
• Landlords of heritage properties have a narrower tenant market, as tenancy in heritage buildings is more restrictive than in new construction.
• 61% of heritage property owners in Canada reported difficulty in finding insurance coverage.
• The heritage status was the reason for declined insurance coverage in 55% of cases.
• Repair or renovate heritage properties means higher labour costs. Labourers must be skilled and experienced in old and sometimes outdated materials and techniques.

While staff proposed to offer incentives that would compensate businesses for increased costs, the GNCC noted that governments regularly scale back or cancel incentives, and even if the current city council introduced incentives in good faith, there is no guarantee that future councils would feel bound to maintain them. Heritage programs, on the other hand, are long-term by definition, designed to protect heritage buildings for future designations.

The GNCC supports protecting Niagara’s heritage, but in a way that does not penalize the businesses that give our communities their vibrancy and create the reasons for people to come downtown. We have urged St. Catharines to investigate other ways of doing this, such as voluntary heritage designations, that offer a way to protect our heritage and our economic prosperity at the same time.

Council opted to refer the report back to staff for clarifications and more details on their proposed incentives, with a new report due for consideration on July 14. If you would like to share your views with the Mayor and city councillors, please consider sharing our message or writing your own, which you can easily do here, with a webform that will send a customizable message directly to all twelve councillors and Mayor Siscoe.