There was a time when the word “heritage” always piqued my interest. Now it increasingly causes a feeling of loathing.

Toronto may not be the world’s most beautiful city, but it may be one of the most heterogeneous ones. Victorians. Edwardians. Mid-century modern. Brutalism. Post-modernism. Some of it is mediocre, some of it even junk, but don’t believe the hype: there are lots of gems in this city.

When I moved here I read books about Toronto’s heritage that explained how neighbourhoods came to be. They also featured noble old houses and buildings that I’d then go out and look at myself. I toured more of them during the annual Doors Open weekend. Each year I attend the Heritage Toronto Awards, a celebration of this city’s 13,000 years of human history.

Along the way I learned about past fights to save beautiful buildings from bulldozers, buildings that later became essential parts of the city that would be heretical to tear down now. Union Station and Old City Hall were almost lost to progress, but citizens spoke up, protested, and defended these buildings and they were saved.

Increasingly, however, the label of heritage seems to be applied to places it shouldn’t be. Last week in a story that seemed too-absurd-to-be-true, a vocal group of Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) Cabbagetown residents opposed a daycare on Sackville St. in a building that’s now residential but, if you’re into heritage, you’d know it was once a commercial shop serving area residents.

When the proposal came to the committee of adjustment at city hall last week, Jane Pepino’s deputation stood out. She is a renowned and respected municipal lawyer from the powerhouse municipal law firm Aird & Berlis and she spoke of reasons why Cabbagetown can’t bear the toddler set. Pepino, who has been appointed to the Order of Canada for her municipal work, told the committee the strollers that would be parked on the porch are a significant heritage concern.

Of course, not a word was or is ever said about the late model cars parked bumper to bumper in the neighbourhood. Cars dominate Cabbagetown streets like nothing else, as they do in the rest of the city, yet somehow they aren’t up for debate, ever, even while non-heritage strollers are.

All of this is done with a straight face and a wilful, cynical disingenuousness that erodes what true heritage preservation means. Of course, the committee of adjustment sided with the vocal residents, refusing to permit the daycare. The abuse of heritage, in this case by a highly respected member of civil society and others, has become a NIMBY tool.

What to make of the motivation to add vast blocks of one- and two-storey buildings along Bayview, Eglinton and Mount Pleasant to the heritage registry last summer? Perhaps some of it is worth saving, but is all of it worthy, especially along the new, multi-billion-dollar LRT line that could and should accommodate many more people?

Regarding that very same high capacity LRT, last week there was an “intention to designate” a dowdy, two-storey apartment building at 1783-1785 Bayview Ave., just south of the new Eglinton LRT station. There’s little special about this building and its location this close to a major transit hub should have many storeys of rental apartments there, but with a heritage designation it would be frozen as is.

While we abuse the idea of heritage, we are allowing the Toronto District School Board to destroy the absolute mid-century gem that is the Davisville Junior Public School. As this city and province grew rapidly in the postwar era, we collectively invested a great deal in beautiful modern buildings in which to educate the city’s children. We, with some help from the TDSB, have proven to be bad caretakers of this architectural legacy, letting our modern gems deteriorate.

Is it possible that because the idea of heritage has been so watered down, so denuded, so cheapened, that when something important and worthy of saving is at risk we can’t muster the conviction to mount a proper Toronto fight to save it as we did in the past?

Just like how those noisy Cabbagetowners maligned the entire neighbourhood, obscuring the good Cabbagetown I came to know as much as the bad when I lived on Sackville, a block away from the proposed daycare for nearly five years, abusing heritage affects the entire heritage community, one I consider myself part of. It’s incumbent on all of us to call out heritage abuse when we see it.

Apart from it being disingenuous and hurting legitimate heritage efforts, responsible heritage advocates know too that the city must grow and change: it isn’t a museum. There’s an affordability crisis in Toronto, in housing and daycare, and we need more of both.

If you attend a heritage event, you’ll notice the crowd is overwhelming older and white. Though changing slowly, it’s a movement that, if it wants to survive, needs the energy of younger people who represent all of Toronto today. They won’t be attracted to heritage that has the stench of NIMBYism in it.

There should be a new category for “most egregious abuse of heritage” at the Heritage Toronto Awards. Surely Cabbagetown would win, but the year is still young and Toronto could outdo itself yet.

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Perhaps more reasonably, Heritage Toronto is currently conducting research over the next six months for a “State of Heritage Report” that, in part, is looking at where heritage concerns have been used to harm the inclusivity of Toronto neighbourhoods.

This is most welcome. We must get past the culture of “no” to make heritage truly worth fighting for.