Town of Saint Andrews, NB, To Create Heritage By-Law

At a council meeting for the Town of Saint Andrews, council and town staff discussed the desire to proceed with the creation of a Heritage By-law to protect the historical buildings in the town. 

"Following the Heritage Conservation Act of the Province of New Brunswick, one of the first steps is to appoint a heritage board who will go through a prescribed consultation process and provide feedback to council," said Chief Administrative Officer Chris Spear when discussing the first actions that need to be taken to move forward with the establishing a by-law.

Spear said staff have received a list of applicants and are ready to proceed to vetting candidates. "It took several months to find sufficient volunteers to fill these positions and now staff needs direction from council if you'd like to appoint the board and allow it to begin their work," said Spear. "Heritage preservation is a defining characteristic of the town and many residents would like to see improved tools to maintain these assets within the downtown area."

Councillor James Hirtle said it is worthwhile for the Town to take their time to appoint the right board and also make sure that the public is aware of what a Heritage By-Law entails before they take immediate action. 

"I think that there's also a subset of folks that think a heritage bylaw might be a tool to defend themselves against their neighbours doing stuff they don't like. And that's not what this is going to be," said Hirtle. "And so I think that if we run too far ahead with it too fast then people might just think that, 'Okay, well, I don't like this so I'm going to get the heritage bylaw involved and squash it,' and I don't want to see that happening because that's going to lead to antagonism and no one really being able to move forward. So I think we need to be very clear and informative to the public about what this is going to be for, specifically before we possibly even move ahead with it at this point. So I do want to get it going, get it off the ground, but I want to make sure that everybody in the community understands what this is for before we do that."

Mayor Brad Henderson echoed Hirtle's sentiments.

"It is important to note that implementing this, if it is successful, is certainly a marathon," said Henderson. "It's not going to be a sprint because once the board is really in place, they are the ones that drive the bus, essentially. So that's why it's important to have the right people on the bus." 

Henderson went on to say that the by-law should focus on the downtown Water Street area to begin with, which is already recognized as a National Historic Site. He believes starting with a focused area of preservation is key to the long-term success of the by-law.

Town staff along with two members of council will soon begin interviewing applicants for the Heritage Board, following the guidelines of the Heritage Conservation Act of the Province of New Brunswick. In the coming weeks, they will have shortlist of board members for council to review.