The City’s Heritage Commission has added two historical buildings to the Heritage Register.
Council approved the addition of both the Munro/Moffat and Pitman houses. These are just the fifth and sixth properties on the register.
There are a handful of benefits to having your property on the list, says City Planner Hillary Morgan.
“The opportunity to utilise alternative standards under the building code, most of these relate to fire protection. If you’re a non-profit organisation, you could be eligible for grants through Heritage BC,” she notes, “the big perk that we advocate for is that it’s a great way to build civic pride.”
The Heritage Register develops a formal list of properties with heritage value which helps the City both advise these property owners about the home’s historical value and monitor any alterations.
John Munro arrived in the area to open the Bank of British North America in 1914. He built the log house – now known as the Munro/Moffat House (153 North Moffat Street) – that same with wood detailing well beyond the architecture of the day. The Moffat family moved in in 1921 and stayed until 1958.
The other new addition to the register is the Pitman House (2387 McBride Crescent), built in 1921. The W.J. Pitman family moved into the home that year and opened a music and piano store on 3rd Avenue in 1922. Mr. Pitman was the Knox United Church organist, a school trustee, and allowed the library to operate in the back of his shop. The two-storey home shares characteristics of the Dutch Colonial housing style, which was often used in the Crescent area in the 1920s and 1930s.
These properties are the first additions to the Heritage Register since it was established in 2007. Morgan and her team are making a straightforward guideline for future proposals, which she hopes will help grow the list.
“We’re working on a really clear procedure for administrating the register so if people want to nominate their property or different properties in the future then we’ll be able to handle those types of applications through the Commission.”
The other four heritage properties are South Fort George School House (755 20th Avenue), Sixth Avenue Liquor Store (1188 6th Avenue), Federal Government Building (1293 3rd Avenue), and Nechako Crossing (west of the confluence of Nechako and Fraser River).