Heritage Plan

Help Us Create the City’s Heritage Plan

Protecting our heritage is important to the City of St. John’s. Work will begin soon on a new Heritage Plan that will assist us in managing, maintaining and protecting our heritage resources. It will align with the Envision St. John’s Municipal Plan and the Heritage ByLaw (approved in 2021).

What is a Heritage Plan?

A Heritage Plan sets goals and objectives to achieve over the next 10 years. It will set out a vision for heritage in the city and establish action items to preserve it.

What will the Heritage Plan include?

Most people tend to think of the City’s historic buildings in downtown St. John’s when they think of heritage, but this plan will consider more than that. It will look at such things as our cultural heritage and may include festivals and events, stories and oral traditions, place names, historic events, natural heritage and public art. Themes in the Heritage Plan include:

• Protecting our built heritage and recognizing cultural landscapes

• Working towards reconciliation with Indigenous residents and history

• Identifying ways to celebrate the history and cultures of St. John’s

• Promoting the Heritage Financial

Incentives Program

• Enhancing accessibility to our heritage, both online and in person

Provide your input

This fall/winter you can help us to protect, celebrate, and recognize our cultural landscapes and built heritage by providing your input on the City’s draft Heritage Plan. Stay tuned to EngageStJohns.ca for more information and register to stay in the loop. Interesting facts about the City’s heritage:

• Water Street was originally called the Lower Path and is one of the oldest streets in North

America.

• Bowring Park is over 100 years old.

• There are 159 Heritage buildings and structures designated in our city.

• St. John’s is part of the ancestral homelands of the Beothuk.

Today, these lands are home to a diverse population of

Indigenous and other peoples.