Sup Veeky Forums

Sup Veeky Forums,
So I work at a real estate firm in Toronto. In Ontario law there's a bill called the heritage act which gives power to the province or municipalities to designate buildings or property a "heritage site".
Example in Toronto most buildings built before the 1930s are considered heritage buildings, so they can't be torn down. Instead new development must incorporate elements of the facade of that building into the new structure

Pic is example of this being constructed right now. The white building embedded in the glass structure was actually completely disassembled, stored, then put back on the outside of the new building so the street front still has the old building's facade.

Anyway, one of our clients was saying how this is stupid and they should be able to buldoze any building on property they own and this adds unnecessary cost to incorporate the old facade into a new building.
The only argument I could come up with was vmuh heritage".
What's a more rational way I can defend the Heritage act and promote protecting old buildings in Toronto without just muh heritage?

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huffingtonpost.com/national-trust-for-historic-preservation/six-practical-reasons-to_b_4956983.html
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This is that building before the glass structure was built

My god that looks hideous

at the very list split the damn buildings entirely

was Dr. Frankenstein the architect?

Here's another example

Also yeah from far it looks bad but walking along the street front they seem like old buildings

>wahhhhh I'm a multi millionaire who owns historic property in downtown areas of a major city wahhhhh preservation is too expensive for me

fuck landlords

anything that makes their life harder I support

This one doesn't look bad at all.
This one with the tower built over the tower is much more egregious in its disregard for taste and tact

huffingtonpost.com/national-trust-for-historic-preservation/six-practical-reasons-to_b_4956983.html

The Toronto example given is "fascadism", which is at the lower end of desirable approaches to preserving heritage buildings. The greenest building is one that is already built.

Now, downtown locations in big cities is different than a small town main street--the astronomical cost of the real estate footprint will drive the reality of what gets built.

idk it seems and looks pretty dumb. either preserve it or don't.

half measures a shit.

Heritages should concern actual iconic buildings, not just any old shit. The example that comes to mind is old Stockholm or Paris' bridges or something like that, not literally who skyscrapers that don't even have a name.

>Incorporate elements of the facade
I don't see a problem with this. Just make the ground floor similar in aesthetic and then have the glass monstrosity poking up.

>The greenest building is one that is already built
What do you mean by this? Old buildings weren't even insulated, now modern windows in sky scrapers need to be triple pane min R-12 insulation value

Well i think the concept in Toronto is because the city isn't that old the city wants to maintain some of its brief history.
From street level they look fine, if you go on Google street view down bay street or yonge street in toronto you will see many buildings like that. I can see in the pic I posted in OP that it looks like shit from far away

Well when the standards for being considered heritage are so low your client is right to complain.

Toronto has an identity crisis; it tries to pretend it has old European heritage like old Montreal or Ottawa

>Wanting to preserve a sense of history that they don't have.

Many buildings are from the 19th century. Toronto is a very neighbourhood based city, with each neighbourhood slightly unique and based on the early immigrants to that area, like one neighbourhood, Cork town has many old Irish style buildings except the area is no longer mostly Irish immigrants, that type of thing
I think what the city wants is to maintain these distinct neighbourhood features

"muh heritage" is valid.

mfw

Another example of a modern building with old facade

Bump

In Toronto it's pretty pointless. Most of the cool buildings came after the DB skyscraper race began. Granted there a few neat old buildings like and old city hall, but most of them were purely utilitarian office blocks. Or rip-offs of other famous landmarks, like the flat iron.

Things worth keeping: old bank buildings, theatres, original bridal path houses, Union, HBC, churches. Everything else can go in TO's continual attempt to be North America's tallest city.

Conservashit spotted

hmmm....

Find the thread interesting after just watching The Fountainhead. The population of Toronto has been mostly replaced by non-Europeans now anyway, seems like the city is being pants on head, would have to argue against the heritage act as it seems hypocritical.

Because heritage designation as a house owner gets your fucked.

You can't do upgrades or renos even in the style of the property. So now you basically have a property that is old and decaying that you can't do anything substantial to increase value and even when you can reno or upgrade many cases it costs more to do so then straight up demolishing it and building a new property.

Also an old building bring old is not enough, it has to be exceptional as a display of its time period for the designation to truly have meaning and maybe good history behind it. Like the Pm's house is a total joke and old as fuck.