Published Articles

Preserving Heritage at What Cost? (in Business Examiner)

Victoria Council’s decision to designate the interior of Rogers’ Chocolates as a heritage interior is a bold step to maintaining the heritage nature of our community. Victoria is certainly a west coast jewel of historic architecture and character and the maintenance of our competitive advantage should be maintained. The cost to the city (to be determined by legal process) has been estimated by the chamber to be as high as $1 million. Is the bold step of risking up to $1 million warranted?

Certainly, the challenge of maintaining our heritage building and character is a complex one. Heritage buildings do require maintenance and upgrades. We only need to look at buildings like the Janion and Northern Junk Company to see what happens when heritage buildings are neglected. Yet there needs to be a balance struck between maintaining our heritage buildings and ensuring the evolution of a modern city and business community.

The example of Rogers is interesting. Rogers’ offered to renovate the existing premises and maintain the heritage components in the renovation. Rogers’ also agreed to match the heritage finishes in the new additions to the retail space. The recent renovations they have made to another store, Rogers’ Chocolate Soda Shoppe, certainly provide no reason to doubt the sincerity of their proposal. The renovation would have been done without cost to the City and indeed the value of the premises would have increased and the City realized greater tax revenue. Yet, the renovation was disallowed.

This decision is certainly precedent setting. It will be the first time that a legal allowance for property owners to seek compensation for lost property value and for lost revenue potential due to a council decision of this nature will be tested. We do not know what the total settlement of that arbitration will be, but we are told it is usually higher than involved parties believe it will be.

If this settlement goes ahead, the next interesting question will be “where is this money going to come from?” Will the City simply raise property taxes to cover the fee? Will they introduce an increased parcel tax until the debt is retired? Will they curtail spending on other municipal areas of responsibility such as policing, public safety, infrastructure, garbage collection, economic development?

We hope not to see a cut-back in municipal funding in other areas of importance in order to pay a bill on an issue that likely could have been settled in another way. Should this expense be incurred, it should rightfully come from the existing heritage budget.

Settling questions concerning heritage maintenance and business development is a difficult task. The Chamber is concerned that the process of negotiation broke down in this case. An upstanding company with over 100 years of history made an offer to invest in the community’s heritage character. City Council decided to take the substantial financial risk of denying the owner the permission to ever improve the interior of their retail store.

Articles - 2010

Articles - 2009