Theme: Carrots
True or False? Incentives – like tax incentives and grants – are essential to attract developers to heritage buildings.
Question: What ‘carrots’ really work to help Canadian developers and building owners keep historic places alive
Here are some of your thought provoking answers
- Program to promote good stewardship
- grant money for environmental clean-up
- Canadian national heritage building code
- Good publicity for heritage projects
- Relaxed building code for heritage buildings
- Acknowledgement of support for greening of heritage properties
- Remove tax advantage of demolition
- Give heritage façade grants
- Diverse tax incentive depending on needs/use of the property
- PST and GST rebates
- Tax holiday during rehabilitation
- Relaxed parking requirements
- More education
- More administrative support for heritage development
- Good/strong heritage guidelines with more certainty and more support
- Create a non-profit organization (like English National Trust) for donations to preserve and restore buildings
- Third-arty community engagement to support heritage developers
- Tax incentive for buildings that contribute to a heritage area or district or streetscape
- Education and training at early level – piggyback on existing programs at post-secondary institutions
- Incentives to developers and architects to send staff to educational courses in US and Canada to learn about rehabilitation
- Create list of sources of competent trades/craftspeople with demonstrated records of success
- Incentives to hire conservation specialists (architects and designers)
- Participate in trade shows (including in the West) to let people know what’s available/new
- Expand the Main Street Program
- Create programs for residential streets – My Streets, or Paint Your Porch, Heritage Colours
- Create a position of heritage ombudsman that is independent of city planners and act as a liaison between neighbourhoods and planners
- Create a trust fund
- Raw version - $$ (small amount) as a catalyst to private and not-for-profit owners; Cooked version – revised? Building codes
- Development levies that can be re-invested into heritage projects
- Tax incentives for entrepreneurial artists
- Rezoning to accommodate work/live spaces in heritage developments
- Urban development fund (similar to Infrastructure program) for all three levels of government
- Grants for commercial buildings that provide housing
- Public recognition and celebration of property owners
- Tax breaks to maintain heritage properties
- Connecting incentives to broader vision of development
- Work with local developers who have a vision for heritage because they grew up in the community
- Municipal incentives to be linked to specific incentives
- Tax forgiveness (or other related measures) for start-up projects
- Tax credits or other incentives for lenders (banks) to support developers involved in heritage initiatives