Planning has officially begun on the Kensington Market Heritage Conservation District, after city staff and Taylor Hazell Architects spent more than a year studying how best to preserve the area’s unique character. It comes shortly after the National Film Board of Canada released a Heritage Minute about the history of the market’s cultural diversity.

This HCD is different because it is not so much about preserving an area’s built form — which is usually the subject of an HCD — but something much less tangible: the area’s culture.

So the challenge for the study was how to promote and protect something that can’t be seen. Local community organizations participated in many sessions with city staff, and helped determine what could and could not be classified as protected under an HCD.

The planning phase is expected to take up to a year, and will determine which limitations should be put in place.

—Geremy Bordonaro/Gleaner News

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NEWS: Preserving culture and history (MARCH 2017)

FORUM: Our dynamic Kensington Market (November 2016)

NEWS: Kensington Market to become heritage district (May 2016)