The Ontario planning system requires that significant cultural heritage landscapes be identified and conserved. The Waterloo Region Heritage Planning Advisory Committee believes that the area centred on the West Montrose covered bridge is just such a landscape. In order to determine whether the area meets the definition of a cultural heritage landscape the project research team from the University of Waterloo is seeking your input through a 15 minute web survey.

A Cultural Heritage Landscape is defined by the Province of Ontario as: “a geographical area of heritage significance which has been modified by human activities and is valued by a community. It involves a grouping(s) of individual heritage features…which together form a significant type of heritage form. Examples may include, but are not limited to, heritage conservation districts…villages, parks, gardens, battlefields, mainstreets and neighbourhoods, cemeteries, trailways and industrial complexes of cultural heritage value.”

In accordance with the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS-2005) issued under the Ontario Planning Act, significant CHLs which are valued by the community will be conserved.

This project is intended to address the points of what is significant, what is valued by the community and to some extent what constitutes conservation (the limits of acceptable change).

This project is being conducted under the direction of Drs. Robert Shipley and Rob Feick, both members of the School of Planning, University of Waterloo Faculty of Environmental Studies with the support of the Centre for Community Mapping. The study is supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Graduate students Marcie Snyder and Matt Scoular have assisted with the work and the people of West Montrose have been generous with their time and knowledge.

Participation in this study is voluntary. Participants can decline to answer questions or withdraw at any time by not submitting your responses. The data collected from this study will be accessed only by the two researchers named and will be maintained on a password-protected computer database in a restricted access area in the Heritage Resources Centre at UW. As well, the data will be electronically archived after completion of the study and maintained for two years after the research study has been completed and any submissions to journals have been completed.

To launch the West Montrose Cultural Heritage Landscape Survey application (click here)