VHF’s Heritage Conservation Grants Program in Canada

Deadline: 26-Feb-2025

The Vancouver Heritage Foundation is pleased to announce its Heritage Conservation Grants Program.

The Heritage Conservation Grants program provides funding opportunities through two categories of heritage conservation grants. The grants can support owners or stewards in the care of their historic site with financial assistance and professional guidance, helping to achieve a high standard of heritage conservation to sustain heritage places and the many benefits they offer for communities.

Categories

• Planning Project Grants will provide heritage site owners and stewards an opportunity to work with a Heritage Consultant. Planning projects can take the form of research and/or required documentation for nominating a building, structure, or site to the City of Vancouver’s Heritage Register. They can also support the creation of long-term informed conservation reports that map out a prioritized schedule for maintenance, repairs, restoration, or rehabilitation of the site.
• Conservation Project Grants provide the next step in supporting a heritage site’s conservation for the long term and focus on the maintenance, repair, restoration and rehabilitation of a site’s exterior fabric and character-defining elements that embody its heritage values.

Funding Information

• Ownership Types & Heritage Protection:

• Planning Projects:
  • Private Ownership – $2,000
  • Private Ownership with Heritage Designation – $2,000
  • Non-profit Ownership First Nation – $3,000
  • Non-profit ownership First Nation, with Heritage Designation – $3,000
• Conservation Projects:
  • Private Ownership – $7,500
  • Private Ownership with Heritage Designation – $10,000
  • Non-profit Ownership First Nation – $10,000

• Non-profit ownership First Nation, with Heritage Designation – $25,000
• 5-year maximum per site: 
  • Private Ownership – $20,000
  • Private Ownership with Heritage Designation – $25,000
  • Non-profit Ownership First Nation – $30,000
  • Non-profit ownership First Nation, with Heritage Designation – $70,000

Eligible Projects

• Planning Projects
  • A Planning Project Grant may provide support for consultation with an approved Heritage Professional to produce the following types of research and documentation:
    • Heritage Assessment to apply for addition to the Vancouver Heritage Register
      • Original building permit and/or water application
      • Summary of ownership/tenancy by year
      • Archival images (if available) – of the site and people associated with it to provide social historical context
      • Fire Insurance Maps
      • Photos of all sides of the site, exterior and interior where notable and photos of neighbouring site(s) to provide context
• Conservation Projects
  • A Conservation Project Grant may provide support for the following types of projects:
    • Conservation projects that support the repair of a historic site, enabling the longer life of the historic resource, for instance:
      • Conservation of exterior character-defining elements including original shingles, siding, stucco, windows, doors, chimneys, masonry elements, porches, etc.
    • Restoration projects that focus on bringing a site back to a specific period in its history, for instance:
      • Identification of the original paint colours on a building and painting in a historically authentic colour scheme using the VHF True Colours palette (for buildings built 1880s – 1920s) or another documented historical scheme.
      • The removal of an enclosure from a once open porch.
      • Rebuilding heritage-equivalent wood windows where the original windows have been lost.

Eligibility Criteria

• Private Owner
  • Individual(s)
  • Strata corporations
• Registered non-profit society or federally registered charity
  • including those with a long-term lease (minimum of 10 years) in a municipally owned building with responsibility for heritage character elements eligible for work.
  • Authorized agent of a site, with written permissions from the site owner
• First Nations

For more information, visit Vancouver Heritage Foundation.