There's one story I would like to tell you. In my previous life in private practice as a lawyer, I ended up carving out a bit of an area of work where I did a lot of heritage work for some reason or other. It just worked that way. One that my firm was involved in, but that I personally was not, was BCE Place in Toronto. There was no tax credit like this in place, but the City of Toronto had a policy that if you were preserving designated heritage elements in certain areas of the central core, you got a two-times density bonus. At the corner of King and Bay, two-times density was kind of valuable, and at Yonge and Front streets, that's kind of valuable.
Every year, Andy Barrie on CBC would have a rant one day where he would talk about how great it was that the planners stood up to the evil, rapacious developers and forced them in BCE Place to save that bank building that became the Hockey Hall of Fame, to save the Chamber of Commerce, that gorgeous building that went inside, and to save all that beautiful facade of buildings along Yonge Street, and really protect that heritage character even though it was new construction, and thank God for the planners.
He was right in one regard, except they weren't standing up to the developers. What happened was incentives were put in place in the form of that density bonus. The developers said, “Hey, we want to get that additional density.” They hired some historians and heritage experts to make the case on why some of these buildings should be designated and preserved because they were of value. The heritage board for Toronto accepted that. They actually encouraged the process of this preservation so they could capture the density.
The point I'm making is that, with the right incentives in place, you will change the bottom-line equations that affect behaviour, and instead of demolition, you will get preservation. Anybody who has been to BCE Place will tell you that it's wonderful because there are beautiful new buildings that are enjoyable to be in, but there's also beautiful built heritage that makes the neighbourhood and the whole area a very valuable and wonderful place to be. It's a tourist hub, an economic activity hub, and it's positive in all those ways.