There is incredible value—social, economic, and aesthetic—captured in our City’s built heritage. When we preserve our historic architecture for future generations, everyone in the city is richer for it. The City operates a Heritage Grant Program in order to allow property owners in heritage conversation areas to take pride in their heritage buildings, and to incentivize owners to maintain their properties in accordance of the Saint John Heritage Conservation Areas By-law.
These grants are not construction subsidies—they’re intended to assist owners in retaining traditional materials and details of character-defining elements and, if necessary, replace them with new components, matching the original materials and profiles.
There are three benchmark grants.
- Heritage Maintenance Grants are available to properties without a Conservation Plan in place and are also available to tenants for storefront signage.
- Heritage Conservation Grants support large conservation projects for properties that have a Conservation Plan in place. There two levels of funding provided by the Conservation Grant, depending on the nature of the project: minor funding supports maintenance work, as outlined in the Conservation Plan; major funding supports restoration work to original character-defining elements, and for major projects such as masonry or structural repair.
- Heritage Conservation Plan Grants are provided to offset the cost of retaining a design professional (architect or engineer) to prepare a Conservation Plan for designated heritage properties. A Conservation Plan provides the property owner with a phased plan to undertake required heritage/structural work.
Other grants maybe available per the current policy.