A character merit assessment reviews the front and street-facing sides of a house to determine if it retains character features.
Apply for assessment before renovating, redeveloping, or demolishing a house built before 1940.
Why you need an assessment
Character merit assessments are part of our Heritage Action Plan.
An assessment determines:
- If a house is eligible for conditional aspects of zoning, such as additional floor area
- The level of recycling required if a house is going to be demolished
Character merit assessments are not applied to outright zones (RS-1) at this time but may be in the future through the Character Home Zoning Review.
Project scope and documentation
Read the administrative bulletin PDF file (180 KB) to get direction on the general scope and documentation needed for projects proposing the retention and renovation of character merit buildings.
Resources
Character house features
Character buildings can be defined by a number of criteria.
Some zones – RT-3, RT-7/8, RT-10, RM-1, and RT-11 – use the construction date as the first measure of character merit.
Special considerations
In these special cases, conditional zoning provisions may be supported at the discretion of the Director of Planning.
Apply for an assessment
Character assessments are a requirement for pre-1940 houses in conditional residential neighbourhoods (example: RS-3 or RS-5), and optional for outright zone (example: RS-1).
See Heritage or Character Building Review - Interim Procedures Bulletin PDF file (219 KB) for more information.