About the CBMCA Heritage Committee

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Many folks are too busy even for the monthly meetings, but like to keep up to date with what is happening in the community with the meeting notes and mailings.

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Our annual report below shows some of the many projects we are working on. Perhaps there is something new you would like to take on. Give Marilyn a call or email, or come to one of the meetings. Please note that the members of the committee involved with decision making will need to be members of the Cliff Bungalow Mission Community Association (just $5.00 and worth it!).

2007 CBMCA Heritage Committee Year in Retrospective

It was another good year. We were more organized and better networked than in 2006, and were therefore able to accomplish more.

Our projects were mainly focused around awareness and communication:

  • We will have a heritage web page available by the beginning of the New Year. This will have online history, a collection of useful links and information about the committee and projects.
  • There are plans for Heritage monuments underway
      • Proposed naming of the small park Mok'nstsis Park, complete with plaque as part of the renewal of the park
      • Community history plaques proposed for the Riverbank project*
  • The City recognized the St. Mary’s Parish Hall with a commemorative plaque*
  • We held a research workshop in February which taught folks how to research their property. In terms of bolstering the properties on the municipal inventory, we decided that, for the most part, professional researchers are the best option, and we are putting our energy into planning a project for 2008 which uses provincial and municipal grants.
  • We led a walking tour of the neighbourhoods during Historic Calgary Week, and manned a booth at the Lilac Festival
  • The most significant project was the Neighbourhood Plaque recognition project spearheaded by Bill Longstaff. We welcome your nominations for this ongoing program, and you will hear about our first presentations in the coming year.
  • Neighbourhood trees listed on the Heritage Tree Foundation inventory.

* Heritage Committee was not involved with these projects, but they are note worthy for the community.

We maintained the network we have with other heritage organizations in the city, and expanded as well:

  • We participated in the Calgary Civic Trust’s post-AGM strategy meeting
  • Heritage Canada Foundation – we joined this organization, and Rick & I attended the 2007 conference in Edmonton. The theme this year was “Places Rebuilt or Reborn?” with a strong development focus. The conference provided us with some wonderful strategies which we can use for our 2008.
  • We maintained our strong relationship with The Calgary Heritage Initiative, Heritage Round Table and the City Heritage Planners

On the development front:

  • 4 members of the heritage committee are on the development committee, and Rick & I just received our Partners in Planning diplomas from the FCC.
  • we submitted an extensive two part information article about the Cliff Bungalow and Mission Area Redevelopment Plans in the newsletter
  • we are pursuing matching funding from the Municipal Heritage Partnership Plan for research on potential heritage sites for inclusion on the City Heritage Inventory
  • we are seriously putting to the test some of the new strategies to preserve buildings in the Mission ARP:
      • Parking relaxations for commercial sites on the Inventory of Potential Heritage Sites – Mission Cycle Building (Inglis McNeil Block)
      • Adaptive re-use of historically significant sites and structures is encouraged – Mission Cycle, potential pastry shop in a heritage building are examples
      • Home occupation – potential properties in Cliff Bungalow and Mission
      • Comprehensive rear yard development – we are hoping that the first example of its kind goes through next year
  • Western Canada High School – thanks to steady efforts for the community to be considered as important stakeholders by the CBE, we now participate in regular stakeholder meetings. All other stakeholders support the preservation of the building and the school site. A Heritage evaluation of the site was recently completed by Lorne Simpson, noted Calgary heritage architect, and we eagerly await his findings.

Looking ahead to 2008, we plan to continue with all the projects you just heard about and more:

  • Topping the list is our continued highly vocal presence at the Western Canada High School meetings.
  • We plan a tour focused on our Francophone heritage for next year’s Historic Calgary Week, with both English and French language versions.
  • As mentioned, we will be continuing an ambitious project to get at least 10 more properties on the municipal inventory, and ideally some heritage streetscapes as well.
  • We only modestly increased our membership (by one person) in 2007, so this is something we can continue to expand.
  • Most important, I would like to foster an awareness of the “green” aspects of preservation.

And on that note, I would like to close with some wisdom from an article by Dr. Shipley, a professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo, who was one of the fabulous speakers at the Heritage Canada Conference. After commenting that we recycle pop cans worth pennies, yet do not recycle cities themselves, he goes on to say: “Our cities are the biggest blue boxes we have. One in seven buildings in Canada today was built before WWII and one in fourteen before WWI. Most of the buildings where Canadians will live in 2030 already exist today….Every existing structure contains within it a store of energy, embodied energy. Every brick was created by burning fossil fuel. Every beam was transported from the forest where it was cut by train or truck burning fuel. Every nail was smelted by burning coal. All of that energy is gone forever, irreplaceable. And yet, as long as that building stands, the energy has been captured and continues to be useful to us. When we demolish buildings, we not only lose that energy, we burn even more to replace the building, and we send the results of our destruction to unsustainable landfill sites where demolition and construction debris accounts for almost 40 percent of the waste stream.”

Over the past 30 years, Canada has lost 20% of its historic buildings to demolition.  I hope this is a trend that groups like ours are beginning to reverse.

The Real Impact of Heritage Designation, Robert Shipley, PhD, MCIP, RPP, Municipal World Magazine, February, 2007.