After devastating church fire in Toronto, experts warn hundreds more historic buildings lack proper protections

Open this photo in gallery:

Before St. Anne’s Anglican Church in Toronto was consumed by a devastating fire – along with the rare Group of Seven murals and mosaics inside – the parish faced a decades-long struggle to protect the historic building.

The church did not have a sprinkler system, which left it defenceless when the fire broke early on June 8 and ultimately destroyed everything but the building’s stone facade. It also had a leaky roof that previously threatened the rare artwork inside before being fixed in the early 2000s.

The fire in June has underscored the risks in Canada facing historic churches and other landmarks, which lack the types of protection that would be required by modern building standards and no clear way to pay for those upgrades.

“Hundreds if not thousands of churches across Canada are in the same spot,” said Cody Barteet, a professor of art history at the University of Western Ontario, whose research focuses on Anglican churches.

Cathleen Hoeniger, a professor at Queen’s University specializing in art conservation, said the Toronto church’s designation as a national historical site, as well as a provincial heritage site, should have meant it was well-protected.

“Ideally, there would have been more substantial protection, given the hugely precious mural paintings by members of the Group of Seven,” said Prof. Hoeniger. Protection should have included a fire protocol with water sprinkler systems, alerts and security, she said.

But like many aging churches across the city, the funding to install these safeguards was scarce. While some government grants were available to the parish for maintenance and repairs, the congregation largely relied on donations to protect the historic building and the artwork inside, said Rev. Don Beyers.

St. Anne’s Anglican Church sets $1-million fundraising goal following devastating fire

Over the years, Parks Canada had awarded the church grants, most recently $250,000 for the installation of a new heating system, while the City of Toronto also provided $60,000 in funding, he said. A permanent fundraiser was also established through a Canada Helps Page.

The funding hardly covered the cost of refurbishments the church has needed over the years, including fixing the leaking roof that threatened to destroy the Group of Seven murals in 1998.

In 1998, Diane Paquette wrote for The Anglican Journal that “an insidious problem haunts the coloured walls of St. Anne’s Church in west Toronto – a problem that, drip by drip, threatens to damage several valuable paintings by members of the Group of Seven.”

That year, the parish sought to gather $1-million in funding to fix the leak. The roof ultimately underwent some repairs after a $400,000 federal government grant from Parks Canada’s heritage site program, but a large portion was covered through private donors.

Philip Evans of ERA Architects said renovations of the sort that were needed at St. Anne’s before the fire would carry a price tag upward of $5-million.

Part of the challenge is that there are no federal or provincial programs outside of Quebec to fund work such heritage restoration and maintenance, said Prof. Barteet at Western.

In an e-mail statement, a spokesperson for Parks Canada, which oversees the National Cost-Sharing Program for Heritage Places, said eligible sites can apply for up to 50 per cent of costs or $250,000 for conservation-related projects, and that it has a “competitive selection process.”

Open this photo in gallery:

Part of the problem is that the city’s interest in preserving and celebrating its heritage lags many other global centres, said Heidi Reitmaier, executive director of Museum of Toronto.

“We have some exceptional artworks and heritage around the city, but unlike other cities, which perhaps celebrate their heritage more or build it into the city’s identity, we are still unclear or maybe less celebratory than most,” she said.

Ms. Reitmaier pointed to Chicago as a comparable city that does an outstanding job of preserving and promoting its public art and heritage spaces, gathering funding for their upkeep in the process. “Since the 1800s, Chicago has nurtured a reputation through policy and investment in permanent public art ... and it has built tourism on this reputation.”

This year, thousands of buildings in Toronto are set to lose their heritage status at the end of 2024 as part of Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act, which seeks to make it easier to build more housing by eliminating some heritage designations. As a result, funding for the preservation of aging buildings is often at odds with urban development and housing goals.

But protecting heritage sites, and churches in particular, shouldn’t just be a matter of pouring funds into every old building, said Julia Gersovitz, a conservation architect. It’s about risk management and getting more strategic about how we allocate funds.

“There’s an enormous inventory of old churches,” said Ms. Gersovitz. “So you would start by looking at your inventory: St. Anne’s is a fabulous piece of Byzantine architecture so let’s put St. Anne’s on the top of the list because we don’t just have the architecture but the things that are intrinsic to the architecture that are important within.”

The next step is doing a risk analysis. “It’s not about putting in a sprinkler in each old building in the city but about putting your resources to a building that is most at risk,” she said.

Generating interest and funding to protect sites like St. Anne’s is also a matter of creativity, said Graham Livesey, an architect and professor at University of Calgary.

One strategy that maximizes a site’s potential and helps old churches generate funding is leveraging air rights, he said. They “allow heritage building owners to sell the airspace above a building in locations where tall buildings can be built.”

Prof. Barteet acknowledged that interest in public funding for historic churches can be a challenge given the countless other funding priorities. But he said the argument for investing in saving these churches shouldn’t be overlooked.

“The places reflect a moment of profound cultural and national change in the national identity,” he said. “With the loss of these churches, we’re losing that element of visual culture that can tell us what was happening in Canada at that time.”