LETTER
Heritage designation for the Museum District
The City’s Advisory Committee on Urban Planning (CCU) will have to make a decision of great importance for the future of the City - whether or not to recommend a heritage designation for the Museum District of Old Hull, our shared city centre.
Designation would provide legal and regulatory protection for the heritage value of the area, while allowing for appropriate development. The CCU will have to decide whether the heritage value, quality of life, and community spirit of the area should be protected and allowed to develop along lines envisioned by the district’s residents, property-owners, businesspeople and restaurant operators, and by historians and a large number of Gatineau residents who expressed their views via public consultations.
The request for a heritage designation has been developed and formalized through a series of urban planning steps over the last ten years:
1. Based on participation from all parts of Gatineau, a “Plan particulier d’urbanisme” specifying conditions for development of the District and recommending protection of its heritage values was adopted unanimously by City Council in 2009. 2. Gatineau’s “Schéma d’aménagement” (Land Use and Development Plan), adopted unanimously by City Council in 2015, confirms the importance of protecting the District as a key component of Gatineau’s identity. 3. The request for heritage designation was submitted in 2016. 4. Public consultations organised by the City followed, in which a majority of participants supported a heritage designation. 5. Gatineau’s Urban Planning and Sustainable Development Service formally recommended a heritage designation for the District in 2018.
A CCU recommendation in favour of the heritage designation would recognize and strengthen this series of actions. Gatineau’s city centre (Hull) represents a resource for all citizens of the city. Thanks to the robust vision developed over the past ten years, the Museum District could become a pole for our City’s development, contributing to our identity, sense of belonging.
A positive recommendation from the CCU would confirm that Gatineau takes into account citizen actions in support of our democratic life and resident-based development.
A CCU recommendation against the heritage designation would send the following messages to citizens: a) an urban development plan developed in a series of steps over more than ten years can be arbitrarily overturned; b) citizen participation is not important for Gatineau; and (c) there is no point in citizens putting effort and time to participate in democratic processes.
We find it difficult to understand how elected officials can take a position against actions taken and opinions expressed by so many citizens, formalized in urban plans and supported by public consultations and by previous Councils over the past ten years.
We call on the members of the CCU to recommend a heritage designation for the Quartier du Musée, in support of development at a human scale, for citizen inclusion and the future of all citizens of Gatineau.
Association de résidants et résidantes de Hull-Wright
Association de résidants de Deschênes / Deschênes Residents’ Association
Association de résidants de Terrasse Lakeview / Lakeview Terrace Residents’ Association
Association de résidants Les amis de Wychwood / Friends of Wychwood
Association du Patrimoine d’Aylmer / Aylmer Heritage Association
Association de résidants de l’île-de-Hull
Association de résidants Les jardins Taché
Association des résidants du quartier du Carrefour de l’Hôpital
Association du patrimoine du Ruisseau de la brasserie (APRB)