It’s been a busy few weeks for friends of heritage in the City of Lacombe. On Friday October 14th, I led a workshop on values-based management for members of the city’s Heritage Steering Committee. The City of Lacombe, with the advice of the committee, will soon begin evaluating several historic places for heritage value.
Then, on Thursday October 20th, the City of Lacombe hosted an “Evening of Heritage”. About 80 residents listened to several presentations and afterwards had many great questions. Over the course of the evening:
- Laura Pasacreta, of Donald Luxton and Associates, updated the community on the progress of the ongoing heritage inventory;
- Donald Luxton, Principal of Donald Luxton and Associates, showed the audience how to maintain and repair a historic wood-frame window; and
- David Holdsworth, a Heritage Planner with the City of Edmonton, spoke about Edmonton’s municipal heritage conservation program.
The City of Lacombe began working with MHPP in 2008. Since that time, the entire community has been surveyed and the heritage steering committee has identified well over 100 places that deserve further study. Since 2009, Lacombe has been steadily evaluating these sites to determine which have sufficient value to the community to warrant Municipal Historic Resource designation.
Not content to simply evaluate historic places, the “Evening of Heritage” marks the first step in Lacombe’s efforts to develop municipal polices to protect and conserve locally significant historic places. The event was a great way to introduce the community to the idea of heritage conservation.
We congratulate Lacombe’s ongoing efforts to conserve locally significant historic places, or at least we plan to just as soon as we catch our breath …
Written by: Michael Thome, Municipal Heritage Services Officer
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