Urban Policy And Heritage Planning: The Disproportionate Designation Of Heritage Conservation Districts (HCDs) In The City Of Toronto

<div>This Major Research Paper (MRP) examines the disproportionate designation of Heritage Conservation Districts (HCDs) within the City of Toronto, which are predominantly located in the City's downtown core, compared to the City's inner suburban areas. To illustrate the discrepancies in HCD designation, two potential HCDs in Scarborough, one of three inner suburbs in Toronto, are chronologically examined. Both Agincourt and Midland Park’s HCD represent the most recent examples of heritage designation in the inner suburb, which stands as the only area in the City that has zero HCDs. Before the case studies are discussed, the effects of Toronto's 1998 amalgamation, select timeframes of the City's planning history and recent changes to Provincial planning legislation that govern municipalities' heritage approach are examined. It is determined that a series of factors contribute to the disproportionate designation of HCDs in the City of Toronto. These factors include the incremental designation of heritage properties post amalgamation, the lengthy heritage designation process, the intergovernmental nature of municipal heritage policies, the lack of public education on the benefits of heritage and a complex HCD prioritization process all contribute to the disproportionate designation of HCD’s in the City of Toronto. Four key recommendations are offered to help resolve the heritage designation issue in the City of Toronto.</div><div><br></div><div>Keywords: Heritage Conservation Districts; Toronto; Urban Planning, Urban Policy, Heritage Urbanism.</div>

Urban Policy And Heritage Planning: The Disproportionate Designation Of Heritage Conservation Districts (HCDs) In The City Of Toronto

<div>This Major Research Paper (MRP) examines the disproportionate designation of Heritage Conservation Districts (HCDs) within the City of Toronto, which are predominantly located in the City's downtown core, compared to the City's inner suburban areas. To illustrate the discrepancies in HCD designation, two potential HCDs in Scarborough, one of three inner suburbs in Toronto, are chronologically examined. Both Agincourt and Midland Park’s HCD represent the most recent examples of heritage designation in the inner suburb, which stands as the only area in the City that has zero HCDs. Before the case studies are discussed, the effects of Toronto's 1998 amalgamation, select timeframes of the City's planning history and recent changes to Provincial planning legislation that govern municipalities' heritage approach are examined. It is determined that a series of factors contribute to the disproportionate designation of HCDs in the City of Toronto. These factors include the incremental designation of heritage properties post amalgamation, the lengthy heritage designation process, the intergovernmental nature of municipal heritage policies, the lack of public education on the benefits of heritage and a complex HCD prioritization process all contribute to the disproportionate designation of HCD’s in the City of Toronto. Four key recommendations are offered to help resolve the heritage designation issue in the City of Toronto.</div><div><br></div><div>Keywords: Heritage Conservation Districts; Toronto; Urban Planning, Urban Policy, Heritage Urbanism.</div>

GLOBAL CITIZENS AND WORLD HERITAGE: SOCIAL INCLUSION OF ONLINE COMMUNITIES IN HERITAGE PLANNING

Social inclusion has grown as an important goal for heritage planning over the past decades. Whilst the document Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape called a decade ago for novel tools for civic engagement and knowledge documentation, social media already functions as a platform for online communities to actively get involved in heritage-related activities by sharing their ideas. Especially when radical events occur around heritage properties, either positive or negative, emotions and opinions would spread rapidly across the globe via the internet to reach online communities of interested or concerned citizens. This paper presents a theoretical framework defined to classify social inclusion of online communities in heritage planning processes through differentiating the everyday baseline scenarios from the event-triggered activated ones. A preliminary systematic literature review shows that research integrating and comparing both scenarios is still scarce, and that specific tools and algorithms to handle large datasets are needed to identify the structure of communication networks underpinning the spread of information on social media. This framework is the first step on future research to investigate the different focal attention points, mechanisms, and patterns of social inclusion of online communities in heritage planning, towards transforming it to a more socially inclusive practice.

Assessment process in the delimitation of historic urban landscape of Algiers by AHP

This research paper covers the way in which landscape delimitation is carried out in a historic urban area context. Landscape delimitation, in this case, explores the relationship between landscape considerations in the urban and heritage planning system in Algeria. The characterisation of the historic urban landscape is challenged by various types of values. The landscape assessment of the central urban historic area of Algiers was focused on its beauty configuration using the AHP multi-criteria method, supported by values obtained through GIS. Various delimitation alternatives of the historical urban landscape are assessed. Distinctive landscapes emerge, moving away from the original historic urban landscape, which is strictly related to the context of the casbah. Spatial landscape delimitation is the means by which the connecting values of the landscape and their interconnections are managed by monitoring problems of fragmentation and ensuring their interaction at the different boundaries. Urban planning must necessarily incorporate landscapes boundaries into the decision-making processes for the conservation of value connections and managing its beauty configuration.