Heritage Properties: The Devolution Solution
For the past six years, the provincial government has struggled to implement the 2002 decision to devolve the Heritage Properties. The operation and conservation of the dozen or so historic sites, from single houses to entire townsites, has been contracted to independent managers. Devolution has been a rough road, and absorbed a lot of time and money from the Heritage Branch’s limited resources.
Looking for a way to achieve a lasting solution to the devolution conundrum, the Branch last year commissioned Commonwealth Historic Resource Management Limited to make a comprehensive survey of the situation and come up with answers to a couple of questions: What will it take to put the Properties on a permanently sustainable footing? What would it cost to shut them down?
Commonwealth looked at the remaining 10 operating sites (ownership of a couple has been transferred out of government). While the study concluded that some sites have faired better than others under devolution, the bottom line is that all sites are failing to generate sufficient revenues to meet their contractual obligations:
“As a consequence, the integrity of the historic resources is being placed at risk by insufficient investment and maintenance. Site operations are considered to unsustainable. Without meaningful change, many of the properties – which are so important to the heritage of British Columbia and the economies of their communities – are destined for closure and failure.”
(Provincial Heritage Properties Sustainability Study)
What is the solution? The report says that the province must increase its investment. This includes a one-time “catch-up” investment of $3.8 million for deferred maintenance and conservation, plus a further $6.5 million for new water and sewer systems at Barkerville and Fort Steele, for a total $10.3 million immediate infusion. Secondly, the province needs to increase its annual operating subsidy from the present $1.8 million to $4.9 million (or $4.5 million without Cole Island near Victoria, which is not open to the public or under a management agreement).
There are other considerations, such as improving operating revenues, but this is the bottom line: there has to be significantly more investment from the provincial government if the Heritage Properties are to be put on a sustainable footing. By way of comparison, the study considered the alternative of “mothballing” the sites: shutting them up and keeping them for a later day. The one-time costs for this option are estimated at $3.6 million, and the annual maintenance costs at $3.9 million. This of course does not consider the regional economic impact of closing these popular tourism attractions, or the inevitable political fallout.
It is now up to the provincial government to decide what to do. Heritage BC wrote to the Treasury Board and Premier Campbell in September urging them to 
support new funding as the only means to ensure that our heritage tourism attractions stay open and our irreplaceable heritage is preserved. It would also be gratifying to finally move on to other pressing heritage issues.
