Dear Hammond Neighbours,
and
Dear Maple Ridge Neighbours who care about the heritage character homes in our neighbourhoods,
Help has arrived in the form of a new Heritage Grant Program from the City of Maple Ridge! Read the news here.
Hammond is changing and not all of it is good. Yes, we need more homes for people, but when an older home with heritage character and a generous yard is replaced with a tall modern structure with the biggest footprint and smallest yard that zoning allows, something is lost. It may be more energy efficient, but it is larger so it will require more energy and the greenhouse gas emissions embodied in the new construction obliterate any improvements in energy efficiency. Then there is the loss of neighbourhood character.
I’ve said before that under BC law, there is little a government can do to protect heritage character properties if the owners do not agree. After all, it’s a free country and our colonial system puts a lot of stock in ownership of land and individual freedom.
As things stand, it is up to the owners of a property to engage with the City of Maple Ridge’s Heritage Department and protect its heritage character. There is some flexibility as to what is protected and what incentives are granted. For example, Hammond Forever House is protected by a Heritage Revitalization Agreement and, as incentive, we didn’t pay municipal property tax for 5 years. For some reason, this voluntary approach has not been very successful locally, with very few property owners protecting their homes before selling them. Even one of the Hammond Brother’s homes, which was listed on the Heritage Registry but not protected, was torn down.
However, it appears that someone at City Hall is listening and a new grant is available to help owners of heritage properties who apply before February 28th, 2025. I have applied and I hope you do, too. Go to The Heritage Grant Program Guide and you will see:
The City of Maple Ridge Heritage Grant Program is intended to help conserve our community’s heritage by providing financial support for eligible heritage projects led by residents, organizations, and members of local First Nations.
There are two different funding streams: “Built Heritage”, for projects related to the conservation of heritage buildings, such as restoring exterior heritage attributes or increasing energy efficiency; and “Cultural Heritage”, for projects related to arts, oral traditions, social practices, rituals, festive events, or knowledge and may include performing, teaching, documenting, or sharing content related to the community’s Cultural Heritage or local Indigenous heritage.
As I walk past some of the wonderful older homes in Hammond, I often think of the practical struggles of living in and maintaining them. Such things as drafts, single-paned windows and aging wood siding can be really daunting to address. A grant program like this could give just enough encouragement for someone to take the first step and lift that sense of hopelessness.
Our home is a case in point. The Whitehead Residence (AKA Hammond Forever House) has been restored and upgraded with a new foundation and basement, more insulation and mechanical ventilation, and several new triple-paned windows, all without assistance from grants or rebates. In our quest to improve comfort and energy efficiency, we have met an obstacle many heritage home owners know well: single-paned windows with heritage character. Some of these windows are stained glass transom lites, and some are simply irreplaceable without destroying the heritage character of the house. How can we make them more efficient? We discussed some DIY solutions, but I am not confident my limited craftsmanship would do the house justice.
For anyone reading who has single-paned heritage windows, here is the best solution I found: traditional storm windows. There is a company called Vintage Woodworks Inc. who build custom wood-framed storm windows. These were often attached on the exterior of windows for the winter and removed in the summer. There are even clips still attached to some of our exterior window frames, but the storm windows themselves are long gone. The issue with these and any other custom work, of course, is cost. And that’s where a Heritage Grant comes in.
As luck would have it, I had secured a quote for about $6000 for eight storm windows from Vintage Woodworks in October, 2024. At that time I replied, “I’ll get back to you when we have scraped some funds together for this project.” Our family cash flow situation is not great right now, so I had no expectation that we would be able to afford to do this soon. However, if the Heritage Grant can cover 50%, it seems too good an opportunity to pass up. I filled out an application and sent it in. You can read it below.
I’m hoping that my neighbours in heritage character homes also take advantage of this innovative program and that it encourages them to secure some level of protection for their home.
Personally, I do support higher density housing in certain areas of Hammond as well as in-law suites and laneway houses, but I hate to see the smaller homes with heritage character wiped out and replaced with massive single-family homes. That doesn’t help the housing crisis or the climate crisis.
Our Heritage Grant Application
First, I read the Heritage Grant Program Guide and then filled in the application form like this:
Whitehead Residence
Sealing, protecting and increasing the efficiency of character-defining windows of the Whitehead Residence in Hammond, Maple Ridge.
xxxxx 205th Street (originally 80 Waugh Street) (ca. 1923) is known as the Whitehead Residence or Hammond Forever House. It is subject to a Heritage Revitalization Agreement with the city of Maple Ridge and has been restored, preserved and retrofit by the current owners, James Rowley and Leanne Koehn. The Statement of Significance for the HRA includes the following description:
Heritage Value
The house at xxxxx 205th Avenue is important for its aesthetic, cultural and social values. It is a good example of residential building that used generous wood detailing to achieve a delightful, sound design that weathered well: a style of building called the Craftsman bungalow, that the owner/builder copied from a house on Dewdney Trunk Road near Webster’s Corner (the centre of the Finnish community in Maple Ridge).