Prince George’s Heritage Commission is looking to boost both its number of members and meetings dates heading into 2025.
The proposals were discussed during the commission’s last meeting of 2024 held on Thursday, Dec. 12.
Commission chair George Davison said at the meeting that the body has had difficulty getting things done with just four meetings a year.
There had been some consideration of increasing the number of meetings to 10, as the commission used to in the past, but decided on seven as a compromise.
Joining that proposal is one to raise the number of commissioners from nine to 12. Davison said that in the past, both the Exploration Place and the Prince George Public Library had representatives on the commission and this would allow those entities to join once again.
The benefit of this, he said, is that it would allow for those entities to designate staff to work on heritage-related projects.
To increase the number of members and meetings, city council would have to amend the bylaw establishing the commission.
Ethan Anderson, the city's manager of legislative services, said at the meeting that he doubted it would be possible to do so ahead of the commission’s first scheduled meeting of 2025 in March as council will soon be occupied with budget deliberations and would likely ask staff to prepare a report on its options for amending the bylaw before making any changes.
One of the commission’s current projects is to review and update heritage signs within the city with various stakeholders.
The commission’s draft report to council for its 2024 activities discussed at the meeting said that of the 61 heritage site signs in Prince George, about half need to be repaired. At a rate of roughly three signs per year, it would take about 10 years to get through the list.
Two signs were fixed this year at the Zion Lutheran Church on Tabor Boulevard and Carrie Jane Gray Park.
The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway sign has been taken down for repairs.
Davison said he reached out to Kalitec, a Montreal-based company that made weatherproof and graffiti-proof signs for Mount Robson Provincial Park, for quotes. One sign from them would cost $1,237.12, 10 would cost $696.19 each and 60 would each cost $645.05.
However, the chair noted that this quote expires as of Dec. 15.
Many of the existing heritage signs in Prince George were installed for the city’s 100th anniversary back in 2015. Husky Energy provided funding towards the project, which is why the company’s logo is featured on those signs.
For the next set of sign updates, Davison said they’re looking into funding from various sources including provincial and federal grants and donations from private foundations and corporate sponsors.
Going forward, the commission wants to ensure that local heritage material accurately reflects that this area has been the territory of the Lheidli T’enneh for thousands of years.
The commission is recommending that the public be allowed to nominate elements of Prince George heritage between January and March 2025 and then evaluate their suitability for recognition in a report prepared for next fall.
The commission is working on finalizing the addition of two heritage buildings to the city’s register: The former Knox United Church at 1448 Fifth Ave. and the mid-century modern home at 2299 Laurier Cres.
Part of the old church has since become the Knox Performance Centre after the congregation merged with the one at St. Andrew’s United Church to become Trinity United Church.
The latter home was designed by architect Alan Greenwell, a former city alderman whose firm designed Prince George Secondary School, the Civic Centre and the HSBC Bank Tower.
Both those buildings have been under consideration for heritage status since at least 2022.
Since the heritage registry was created in 2007, 15 buildings and sites have been added to it.
Correction: This story has been updated to correct George Davison's name and the amount provided by Husky. We apologize for the errors.
