Protecting municipally-owned heritage (part two)

When we looked at the need for policies to protect heritage property owned by the province, we saw that the demolition of the old lunatic asylum in Toronto in 1976 was perhaps a watershed moment (see “Policies for the protection of provincially-owned property (part one)”, from May 31, 2015).

In the case of municipally-owned heritage, there are a couple losses that loom particularly large in the last 50 or so years.  The first was in Kitchener, where the splendid 1920s classical revival-style city hall was demolished in 1973.  The building presided over a great civic square, which was also lost — both replaced with a non-descript mall. (Note 1)



Old city hall and civic square, Kitchener

The other was in Chatham in 1981 when the grand old Harrison Hall, Chatham’s city hall, fell to the wrecker’s ball.  I remember the consternation this caused at the culture ministry in Toronto at the time.  The OHA had been passed in 1975 and the revamped Ontario Heritage Foundation (now Ontario Heritage Trust) had grant money for preservation projects.  But despite provincial and local efforts, council was not persuadable.  Again, a mall rose from the ashes.



Harrison Hall, Chatham

Then there are the famous “they-beat-back-the-philistines” stories from the 1960s and ‘70s — the saving of old city hall in Toronto is the best known.  (In this case another downtown mall, the Eaton Centre, did not end up swallowing the building.)  The 1899 neo-Jacobean (or Picturesque, take your pick) city hall in Stratford, and its triangular civic “square”, also narrowly escaped destruction in this period. (Note 2)



Stratford City Hall from the rear showing part of Market Square

More recently, we have seen notable successes in rescuing civic buildings that were at risk, often as a result of amalgamations.  My favourite is Victoria Jubilee Hall — the fight to save Walkerton’s old town hall gave birth to the local branch of Architectural Conservancy Ontario and ACO now owns the building.



Victoria Jubilee Hall, Walkerton (you can probably guess its date of construction)

What do we learn from all this about how to protect municipally-owned heritage?

First, use of listing and designation is crucial.  Even more so than with private property, as municipalities should be leading by example.  Listing flags a heritage property and provides interim protection.  Designation provides long-term protection.  While it’s true, as we saw last time, that with these powers the municipality ultimately controls the levers, it must still follow the process set out in the OHA.  It must at least consult with, and consider the advice of, its municipal heritage committee.  In the case of de-designation (almost always a bad idea), its actions are also subject to review by the Conservation Review Board if there are objections (which there almost always will be).  While it cannot be appealed, demolition of a designated structure is not something any city, town or township would contemplate lightly.  Even alterations will be subject to sharp scrutiny.  Here in St. Marys the Town proposed removal of a chimney of the designated town hall, creating a big fuss — and hasty back-pedalling.

Heritage district designation can be a powerful way of protecting and enhancing the municipally-owned “public realm” of an area — the streets, sidewalks, verges, etc. that contribute to its unique character.  (Alternatively, or in combination with an HCD, some municipalities, like Kingston, use area-specific Official Plan policies for this purpose.)

Second, the importance of strong heritage policies in the municipality’s Official Plan — deriving from and building on those in the Provincial Policy Statement.  These should include special additional policies that apply to heritage property in municipal ownership and public realm property.  Here are two examples from Toronto’s recently adopted OP heritage policies:

• When a City-owned property on the Heritage Register is no longer required for its current use, the City will demonstrate excellence in the conservation, maintenance and compatible adaptive reuse of the property.
• When a City-owned property on the Heritage Register is sold, leased or transferred to another owner, it will be designated under the Ontario Heritage Act.  A Heritage Easement Agreement will be secured and monitored, and public access maintained to its heritage attributes, where feasible. … (Note 3)

Third, don’t expect the province to come to the rescue of civic heritage at risk.  While I would like to believe the old Kitchener City Hall and Chatham’s Harrison Hall would still be standing if the OHA had had the provincial designation and stop order powers it does today… well, that’s hypothetical, but also fanciful.  (That said, a timely provincial stop order should not totally be ruled out, and sometimes all it takes to turn the tide is a little extra time.)

Not to be overlooked is the Ontario Heritage Trust’s heritage conservation easements program, which further protects many municipally-owned structures such as Stratford City Hall and the Wellington County Courthouse in Guelph. (Note 4)  The province — both the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport and the Ontario Heritage Trust — is of course also a great resource and active promoter for the municipal policies and actions discussed above.  And then… there’s provincial public infrastructure funding!

Finally, and most especially, the role of citizen vigilance and activism, which has effectively preserved so much of our civic (and non-civic) heritage, often through hard-fought battles — whether for the town hall on the square, the bridge on the river or the by-law or policy on the books.

Note 1: Kitchener’s decisions here were approved by public referendum.

Note 2: Architectural historian Douglas Richardson memorably referred to Stratford City Hall fitting into Market Square ”like a hand in a glove.”

Note 3: Policies 8 and 9 under “General Heritage Policies.”

Note 4: The Trust’s easements program is generally a reactive, rather than proactive, one, and because of funding limitations has become over the years less focussed on cultural heritage and more on natural heritage.

Next time: Churches!

Protecting municipally-owned heritage (part one)

How much of our heritage is in municipal ownership?  Think about it — historic city/town halls, libraries, museums, parks, cemeteries (lots!), war memorials.  PUC (public utility commission) and like buildings.  And most bridges.  Don’t forget roads.  What else?

PUC building, now Festival Hydro, Stratford

Some municipally-owned properties have been acquired from other governments or agencies, often because they were redundant — old courthouses, railways stations, and railway rights-of-way are common examples.  Sometimes surplus schools too (schools are owned by school boards).



Junction Station, St. Marys -- one of two stations owned by the Town

Then there are private properties that municipalities acquire, often by expropriation, for various purposes.  The power to acquire property for “community improvement” goals under the Planning Act is well known.  (Believe-it-or-not there is even a power under the Ontario Heritage Act to expropriate property for heritage conservation objectives, but this has been used, to my knowledge, only once, in Amherstburg in the early ‘80s.)  In many cases these are “pass through” properties that are later sold back to the private sector or another broader public sector owner.

In the arsenal of tools to protect cultural heritage resources at risk, public ownership is touted as an important one.  The idea that, relative to an irresponsible private owner, a public owner will be better disposed to recognize the public interest in preserving the property or better able to marshall the resources to do so, or both, is — in general — true.

At the same time we all know that public ownership provides no guarantee of enlightened stewardship of heritage sites — especially in a time of ever greater belt-tightening.  And so there is need for good policies and other measures to provide some assurance this will happen.

For municipally-owned sites, what are these?  Well, first, the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS), issued under section 3 of the Planning Act, which unequivocally directs that “significant” cultural heritage resources be conserved (section 2.6).  As a statement of overarching provincial policy objectives, the PPS is a powerful instrument, and, as intended, can be quite effective in prompting municipalities and other authorities to adopt what might be considered subordinate, implementing policies and actions to protect cultural heritage.  These measures include strong Official Plan policies and the use of tools provided in the Ontario Heritage Act and other legislation.

Reliance on the PPS to protect specific properties, however, would be problematic.  For one thing, it is triggered only with respect to a “planning matter” — arguably how a town, say, preserves (or not) the cultural heritage values of its Carnegie library falls outside its purview. (Note 1)

Designation under the OHA is the usual way of protecting heritage property in municipal hands.  Municipalities are in fact much more likely to designate their own properties than to designate private property, especially where the owner is reluctant.

But in this situation heritage designation is less secure than usual.  Inherent in the (largely) decentralized system created by Ontario Heritage Act is the idea that the decisions about a community’s heritage rest with the local municipal council.  However, where the municipality is also the owner of the heritage property in question… well, you can see how a council might be conflicted.  When faced with a recommendation from its municipal heritage committee to designate a library, for example, the council may choose to designate, or, for self-interested reasons, decide not to.  Or, having designated, the council may decide to approve whatever alteration or demolition the municipality wants to make.  Or even to de-designate.  A cynic might say it looks a little like the fox guarding the hen-house!

Some jurisdictions have a body separate from municipal council — usually a preservation board like the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission — that decides on designations and approves changes to protected property.  (Over the years there have been suggestions that municipal heritage committees, which are advisory only, should be beefed up and assume similar powers.)

Enough for today… more next time.

Note 1: The PPS has other limitations: the qualifier “significant” in the section 2.6 policies is problematic; and there is also the “read it as a whole” injunction which in practice may have the effect of weakening any one specific policy.  For another day.

Carnegie libraries, our communities' public buildings ... and Alice Munro?

This rambling “policy story” begins in my hometown of Milverton, Ontario, north of Stratford — on the edge, as I now like to say, of Alice Munro Country.  And speaking of things literary, like many small and not-so-small towns Milverton has a Carnegie library.



Former Milverton library

Built in 1909 this stately structure saw a century of service from 1910 until it closed in 2011.  I loved the old library as a kid — it was the grandest public building in town (village actually, population about 1100). That impressive flight of stairs, from the top of which which you looked down and across Main Street and further down a street that ran up to the library.  (I didn’t know what an axial view was then, just that it was special.)  The comforting, almost reverential feeling inside — the high-ceilinged rooms with all those books and, of course, the pervasive quiet.  I can still see the shelf where the Oz books resided, and the one with the Hardy Boys books too… but I digress.

The library was also the town hall — the village council met for decades in the lower storey of the building.  In the amalgamation wave that swept the province in the late 1990s Milverton joined with four neighbouring townships to become the Township of Perth East.  The new township needed a new municipal building (I know, doesn’t sound as good as town hall, does it?), and later a new library.

But let’s go back a ways to get the bigger picture — and this brings more public buildings, namely schools, into the mix.  In a tale of dominoes all too common in our communities, here is what happened in Milverton.  The late 1960s-early 1970s saw an earlier amalgamation tide hit Ontario schools, and the Milverton high school was closed (and students bussed to Stratford and Listowel).  But the building was at least re-used as the area public school, although that resulted in the closure of smaller schools round about.  The old, handsome but decrepit Milverton public school became for a while the village/township hall and the council met there instead of the library.  Then the new municipality demolished the old school and built its new municipal offices, which of course also meant that the four former township halls were made surplus.  And then the library was replaced with a new one on a different site, leaving the old building intact but surplus, its fate uncertain too.

Now many municipalities have done a great job of keeping their Carnegie libraries and adapting them to meet current needs.  (Bear with me, I’ll get to the point of all this, eventually).  For example — Brussels, Ontario, in the present Township of Huron East (and the heart of Alice Munro Country), recently enlarged and renovated its Carnegie library, which is the same age as Milverton’s and has some stylistic similarities.  Local architect John Rutledge designed a sympathetic addition while sensitively refurbishing the original building.  When I visited it last month the librarian said that Alice Munro had toured the library the week before and really liked it.  Reminds me that the Wingham library, also a heritage building, was just renamed to honour our Nobel Prize winner… but getting sidetracked again.



Old postcard -- sorry don't have pic after major renewal 

But the Brussels approach would not have worked in Milverton.  More space was needed and, as the photo shows, the site was confined, with houses on either side.  And all those steps — wonderful for views, yes; for accessibility, not so much.  Parking also in short supply.  The new library solved these issues.

It seemed for a while like the old library was at risk.  Our local Architectural Conservancy Ontario branch was concerned.  But fortunately it was purchased by an individual who uses it as a residence and office and is maintaining it nicely.  From public library to private home... but apparently a good example of adaptive re-use.

Did I mention that none of the public (in one case now private) buildings I’ve mentioned is designated under the Ontario Heritage Act?

Next week: protecting municipally-owned heritage

Ontario Place — a special place... and case!

First, before heading on down to the Lake Ontario waterfront, some context.  My two previous posts tell the story of how Ontario ended up with a different protection regime for cultural heritage property in the hands of the Crown.  Provincial standards and guidelines, developed and made mandatory under Part III.1 of the Ontario Heritage Act, now apply to all provincial ministries, as well as to other “public bodies” prescribed in regulation.  To keep things clear, the designation regime under Parts IV and V of the Act does not apply to these public owners.

A big policy question was what public bodies should be “caught” by the new approach.  “Public bodies” is not defined in the legislation and in theory could cover a huge swath of public owners, taking in what is often called the MUSH sector — municipalities, universities, school boards, hospitals, etc.  But a major consideration was that, if public sector properties were brought into the net, it would have the result of excluding them from municipal designation.  In the extreme case this would leave municipalities with only private property to designate!  And what would be the status of town halls, libraries, schools and so on already designated?

So no surprise that it was decided this was just way too far to go.  Rather, since the primary policy intention of the new regime was for the province to “lead by example”, the list of public bodies would be narrowly focussed on Crown agencies and corporations.  And, again to minimize the impact on designation approaches, the list would not catch agencies with a single site, but only agencies with property in different municipalities, so as to ensure a consistent standard of care across their property portfolio.  The St. Lawrence Parks Commission?  Caught.  The Royal Ontario Museum?  Not.

And now we come to Ontario Place, the iconic Toronto landmark owned by the Ontario Place Corporation (OPC), an agency of the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport.  One site, so not caught, right?

Well, not at first.  But earlier this year the government amended Regulation 157/06 (the regulation listing public bodies subject to Part III.1 of the OHA) to add the OPC.  The reason, MCTS said, was to make it clear “about who is responsible for the identification and management of any cultural heritage resources associated with Ontario Place.”

As most will know, Ontario Place, opened in 1971, is in the middle of a major renewal.  While a single property, the site is a large and complex one — a waterfront urban park — with a wealth of resources, cultural and natural.  Cultural heritage values clearly need to be identified and protected as an integral part of revitalization plans.  Bringing Ontario Place within the ambit of Part III.1 of the OHA, and the standards and guidelines regime it provides, seems a smart way to go.

To develop the site’s Statement of Cultural Heritage Value (SCHV) and identify its heritage attributes, the province — in what by all accounts was an exemplary process — set up a heritage review committee with both provincial reps and external heritage advisors. Here is a little of what they came up with:

Ontario Place, a cultural heritage landscape, remains a rare and intact Modernist expression of integrated architecture, engineering and landscape that honours and incorporates the natural setting of Lake Ontario. It was a remarkable and ambitious achievement of late twentieth century architecture, and holds an enduring influence in Toronto, the province and internationally.

See the full SCHV and description of heritage attributes at 

http://www.mtc.gov.on.ca/en/ontarioplace/heritagestatement.shtml.

In July 2014 Michael Coteau, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport, announced the SCHV as part of the province's long-term vision for revitalization of Ontario Place.

Tamara Anson-Cartwright, former MCTS staffer who played a pivotal role as advisor on the project, says: “It was an incredible experience and one of the proudest moments of my career with the province.”

The SCVI has already proved useful in assessing heritage impacts as part of the environmental assessment of the Ontario Place Urban Park and Trail, a first step in revitalization.  It was also handy in obtaining Minister's consent for the removal of a non-heritage building on the site — the provincial standards and guidelines require the consent of the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport for the demolition of structures on heritage properties determined to be of provincial significance.  The SCVI will also be invaluable in preparing a long-term conservation plan for the site, as also required, and in continuing to help inform and guide the revitalization and re-imagining of Ontario Place.

Kudos all round!

Next time: What about municipally-owned heritage property?

Policies for the conservation of provincially-owned property (part two)

As we saw last time, the 1975 Ontario Heritage Act made no provision for the protection of provincially owned heritage property.  Bilateral agreements had been struck between the culture ministry and a few of the main property-owning ministries and, later, the Crown agency that was created to manage much of the government’s property — the Ontario Realty Corporation.  But these arrangements were limited in their scope and certainly in their clout.

Efforts to overhaul the Ontario Heritage Act provided an opportunity to address the issue through legislative change.  In 2002, under Premier Ernie Eves, David Tsubouchi was appointed Minister of Culture.  The minister was (yes!) keen on heritage and, thanks to him, the long-stalled reform of the OHA got going again.  But, fortuitously, he brought something more to the (cabinet) table.  The new Minister of Culture also happened to be the powerful Chair of Management Board of Cabinet and the minister for Management Board Secretariat, which was responsible for the Ontario Realty Corporation.  You see where this is going…

Meanwhile, back in the policy shop, there was a big push to respond quickly to the new interest from the minister’s office.  Old proposals for changes to the Act were dusted off and given a re-think.  Most held up, but some — like what to do about the protection of the Crown’s heritage property — not so much.

As usual in this situation, one looks to what other jurisdictions do.  Most other provinces, with a more centralized approach to heritage than Ontario’s, had legislation that was binding on the Crown and included provincial heritage designation.  This meant that provincially owned property could be designated by the province, which in turn meant, in most cases, the minister responsible for heritage.  Seems logical, but how had this worked out?

Not so well.  There were designations of Crown heritage property but they were relatively few, and were usually the result of negotiation between government ministries/departments.  This latter point makes sense when you think of it.  Following this approach one minister (the culture minister) is essentially designating another minister’s property!  The tension — and potential resistance — in the situation is obvious.  Throw in that in most provinces, as in Ontario, the culture minister is likely not a cabinet heavyweight.  Maybe not the best way to go.

What about the feds?  They have a Federal Heritage Buildings Review Office (FHBRO).  This seems a stronger and more comprehensive model, with federal departments’ responsibility for their heritage backed up by a Treasury Board policy.  But it is also a centralized one, with the designation of heritage property by the Minister of the Environment and FHBRO undertaking heritage evaluations as well as other work.  The regime also does not apply to federal Crown corporations.  Some good things here, but the right fit for Ontario?

In addition to researching how other jurisdictions deal with your particular policy issue, it’s equally important to look at how your own deals with different but analogous issues (even if sometimes the parallel is not apparent).  Ontario as it turned out had one very recent major initiative that influenced the final policy outcome here: the Ontarians with Disabilities Act, which became law in late 2001.  The key take-aways from this legislation were that it applied government-wide, it mandated guidelines to be followed, and it was mainly self-implementing, i.e. not needing a central “review” office.

So… on the question of how to protect Crown-owned heritage property what was developed was a proposal for legislative authority to develop standards and guidelines to apply to all ministries and to other “public bodies” as well.  To avoid overlap and ensure clarity as to which protection regime applied, property of these owners would not be subject to designation under Parts IV and V.

Easier said than done.  But, thanks in no small measure to their shared minister, David Tsubouchi, the “little” Ministry of Culture was able to get the “big” Management Board Secretariat and Ontario Realty Corporation on side.  The bill to amend the Ontario Heritage Act introduced in 2003 included a whole new part of the Act: Part III.1, “Standards and Guidelines for Provincial Heritage Properties.”  While that bill died when the October 2003 election was called, a virtually identical provision was part of the new government’s Bill 60 and became law in 2005.

While this was a huge accomplishment, there were still the small matters of actually developing the standards and guidelines in consultation with affected ministries, getting them approved by cabinet, and deciding on what public bodies they would apply to.  This long and difficult process (a story in itself) took another five years!

But, finally in April 2010, success.  Cabinet approved mandatory standards and guidelines applying to all ministries and to 14 Crown agencies and corporations listed in regulation (Regulation 157/10, since amended).  While the regime is largely self-implementing, the culture ministry has an oversight function and a role in approving ministry/agency evaluation processes (what’s heritage, what’s not) and certain decisions about heritage property of provincial significance.  (Read the standards and guidelines for yourself at: http://www.mtc.gov.on.ca/en/publications/Standards_Conservation.pdf.)

Then, of course, the implementation began!  While off to a slow start, going pretty well, from all reports…

Next time: something cool about Ontario Place!

Policies for the conservation of provincially-owned property (part one)

“…[T]he biggest battle for the forces of heritage in the mid-1970s was against an arm of the provincial government itself, and it was a battle that was lost.” (Note 1)

In 1976 architect John Howard’s masterpiece, the original central building of the Queen Street mental health facility in Toronto — the old Provincial Lunatic Asylum, better known as 999 Queen Street West — was demolished.  The Ministry of Health had decided the building, constructed in 1846-50, had to go.  In the face of opposition by the City of Toronto and heritage groups across the province, and despite strenuous efforts by the new Ontario Heritage Foundation (beefed up with the passage of the Ontario Heritage Act the year before), the Ministry of Government Services, then responsible for the province’s realty management, proceeded to tear down the structure.

Watercolour of John Howard's Provincial Lunatic Asylum, Toronto

When I started at the (then) Ministry of Culture and Recreation in early 1980 the wounds of this battle were no longer raw, but the reek of heritage catastrophe still lingered.

By the way, and as is often the case, it appears the huge controversy over the old asylum helped to preserve another Toronto landmark in provincial hands — the iconic Don Jail.  When the jail’s future was threatened a year or so later, the government thought twice and ultimately decided to save the building.

The experience with the Howard building highlighted a significant defect in the 1975 Ontario Heritage Act — there were no powers to designate or otherwise protect provincially owned properties.  As noted previously (see “The Ontario Heritage Act at 40” from February 16, 2015), this was likely because lawmakers were wary of allowing municipalities, mere “creatures of the province”, to impose controls on government-owned assets.

While other provincial laws — and indeed heritage legislation in other provinces — sometimes stipulated that “This statute binds the Crown”, meaning that provincial authorities would be subject to its controls, there was no such provision in the Ontario Heritage Act.

Before 2005, what amounted to a huge loophole in our legislation — the Ontario government is the largest owner of cultural heritage property in the province — was partially addressed in two ways.  First, the culture ministry in its various guises was able to negotiate, from the early 1980s, bilateral agreements with the Ministry of Government Services (MGS) and its successors charged with management of much government-owned land and buildings.  The protocol with MGS required consultation with the culture ministry on decisions affecting MGS-owned heritage property.  A similar agreement was developed with the Ministry of Transportation with respect to MOT heritage bridges.  The protocols were periodically renewed and became more detailed over the years.  While important steps forward, these arrangements were limited and lacked teeth.

In 1990 A Strategy for Conserving Ontario’s Heritage — the “black baby book” I wrote about last time — recommended that the Government of Ontario “should lead by example through a co-ordinated, government-wide approach to the protection and use of Crown-owned resources” (page 43) and, under the goal of strengthening provincial leadership, set as an objective, “To develop policies and standards for the conservation of Crown-owned heritage resources" (page 57).

Second, on the flimsy pretext that the Ontario Heritage Act did not expressly prohibit the designation of Crown property, a number of more venturesome (and frustrated) municipalities went ahead and designated buildings owned by the province under Part IV of the Act. These “designations” were usually tolerated — and ignored — by the provincial owner, but they did serve to send a message that provincial realty assets were also community heritage assets.

Calls for the province to lead-by-example and “put its own house in order” only mounted over the years.  For the culture ministry the policy question became not whether the government should respond to this pressure, but how.

Note 1: From “Ontario Heritage Foundation History”, an undated and, as far as I know, unpublished manuscript by William Kilbourn, page 28.

Next time: Policies for the conservation of provincially owned property (part two)

The "black baby book" at 25

The heritage movement in this province has been around long enough now — we should have some good, thoughtful writing about what it is, where it came from and where it’s going.  But this seems in short supply. Or maybe it's just hard to find.

We have a few important articles about the history of the preservation movement in Ontario and the development of our heritage legislation.  I’m thinking especially of Mark Osbaldeston’s article, “The Origins of Heritage Preservation Law in Ontario”, published in 1995 in the The Law Society Gazette; and Victoria Angel’s 1998 thesis paper, “The Ontario Heritage Act and The Provincial Program: An Alternate Model for Heritage Conservation.”  Both of these should be read, or re-read, by anyone interested in the history of our heritage policy and legislation.

And there are a handful of government publications, all likewise old, but not necessarily dated.  Perhaps the most significant of these was released 25 years ago this spring: A Strategy for Conserving Ontario’s Heritage: The Report of the Ontario Heritage Policy Review.

I’m a bit biased, because I was part of the Ontario Heritage Policy Review team that worked on this report. (In fact, the review, which ran from 1987-1990, gave me my first real policy job.)

The report — known in-house as the “black baby book” because it had a black cover with a cherubic baby face in one corner — was the first government document to look at cultural heritage in Ontario in a big-picture way, providing a coherent policy framework for the conservation of our heritage, before getting down to the “strategy”, the details of who-does-what.

Like most government reports it had a limited shelf life, especially as the Liberal government of David Peterson, which produced it, was defeated later that year by Bob Rae’s New Democrats.

But there are a small number out there — including some who did not work on it! — who still remember this report and think highly of it.

Maybe a quote or two from the report would help give you a flavour:

Ontario’s heritage is that part of the collective heritage of all humanity for which we have particular responsibility…. 

[W]e are coming to see our heritage as the dynamic and ever-changing context within which we live our lives.  We add to it and subtract from it daily, continually interpreting and reinterpreting it in ways that deepen our understanding of ourselves and our world.  It is all around us and within every one of us. “A fish is the last to discover water’'; our heritage is the “water” in which we live. (p. 19)

Heritage provides rootedness, an often underestimated and neglected human need….

Its heritage is a society’s network of touchstones.  Familiarity helps society cope with change.  Studies of stress suggest that individuals can cope with only a certain amount of change, even positive change, at any one time.  Beyond a particular threshold our mechanisms begin to break down.  Without networks of familiar touchstones — both tangible and intangible — communities, like individuals, suffer various breakdowns of social order and well-being. (p. 9)

Try to get your hands on a copy.