Heritage register
The Kelowna Heritage Register is an official listing of properties within the community that are identified as having heritage value. Search the register below.
The Heritage Register replaces the 1983 Kelowna Heritage Resources Inventory. In 1994, the Local Government Act, along with the community's growth and public interest in the conservation and revitalization of heritage buildings and sites, allowed for the creation of the Heritage Register.
More than 200 properties are currently listed in the Kelowna Heritage Register. For each listed building, a Statement of Significance has been written, indicating why the building merits inclusion. A Statement of Significance provides a description of and identifies the heritage value and character-defining elements of a historic place.
The Heritage Register identifies properties of heritage value in Kelowna and allows us to review and monitor proposed changes that would have an impact on listed heritage properties. Properties listed in the Kelowna Heritage Register have special status and may be eligible to benefit from the following incentives:
- Heritage Revitalization Agreements to vary the City’s Zoning and Subdivision, Development and Servicing Bylaws. This allows the City to consider, on a case-by-case basis, providing property owners with incentives and bonuses such as increasing density, relaxing height and setback restrictions and relaxing parking restrictions, and allowing appropriate adaptive re-uses. In return for these incentives, the property owners would agree to retain and protect the listed properties.
- Special treatment under the BC Building Code, which permits equivalencies to current building code provisions. The equivalencies allow property owners to upgrade older buildings without requiring strict code compliance, while not compromising safety standards.
The Heritage Grants Program, administered by the Central Okanagan Heritage Society is designed to promote conservation of residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural heritage buildings by assisting owners with grants for a portion of the costs incurred in conservation work. Eligible work may include reroofing, window and door conservation, siding and porch conservation, work on foundation and repainting. Any owner with a property listed on the Kelowna Heritage Register is eligible to apply for this program. Interested applicants should visit the Central Okanagan Heritage Society's website for more information.
Buildings listed in the Kelowna Heritage Register can be altered and may even be demolished. However, City Council may temporarily delay the issuance of a permit to alter or demolish a listed heritage building in order to allow time for other development options to be fully explored with the property owner, City staff and the Heritage Advisory Committee.
Inclusion of a property in a Heritage Register doesn’t constitute Heritage Designation or any other form of heritage protection. Furthermore, having a building included in the Heritage Register doesn’t restrict the existing development potential of a property. The property owner is entitled to redevelop the property in accordance with the permitted uses and density of the existing zone of that property.
Requests from property owners to add buildings to or remove buildings from the Kelowna Heritage Register are reviewed by City staff. The City’s Policy & Planning Department will compile background information on the subject building and an evaluation of the building’s architectural and cultural history, context and integrity will be conducted in open meeting with the Heritage Advisory Committee. This process follows the Kelowna Heritage Register Evaluation Criteria.
Following the evaluation, the Policy & Planning Department will forward a recommendation to City Council regarding the proposed addition or removal of the building to the Register. The property owners will be advised of Council’s decision.
Kelowna Memorial Park Cemetery occupies a picturesque site east of Spall Road, at the base of Dilworth Mountain, with rolling topography and panoramic views to the south. The City of Kelowna has operated the Cemetery since 1911. Prior to this it had been established as a small public burying ground. Over time, an adjacent Anglican cemetery and the private Hardy Family cemetery were established, now amalgamated and expanded until the cemetery reached its current size of 20 hectares. In total, the Kelowna Memorial Park Cemetery contains over 15,000 interments. Sections A and B are the "dry" parts of the Cemetery, and are defined as family maintenance areas. Section A contains the earliest pioneer parts of the Cemetery. Other sections consist of grassed terrain, with raised markers and lawn markers, with many mature trees and plantings.
The historic place is the Lequime Store, built in the original townsite in 1904 and located at 229-233 Bernard Avenue, at the western end of the Downtown area.
The historic place is the Foster Block, a single-storey brick commercial building erected in 1921 and located at 225-243 Bernard Avenue, near the Lake Okanagan waterfront at the western edge of Kelowna's Downtown area.
The historic place is the Old Royal Bank Building, a stolid two-storey stone commercial building constructed in 1910-11 at 262 Bernard Avenue, at the western gateway to Downtown Kelowna.
The historic place is the two-storey Leckie Block and the attached two-storey Crowley Block, located at 267-271 Bernard Avenue, a brick-and-concrete commercial structure begun in stages between 1904 and 1912 in Kelowna's original townsite area, near the western edge of Downtown. Both buildings are often referred to simply as the Leckie Block.
The historic place is the two-storey brick Rowcliffe Block, built at 272 Bernard Avenue in 1908, in Kelowna's Downtown commercial area.
The historic place is the two-storey Old Post Office brick commercial building constructed in 1908, and located at 274 Bernard Avenue in Kelowna's Downtown area.
The historic place is the two-storey Okanagan Loan and Investment commercial building constructed around 1909 and located at 280 Bernard Avenue, in Kelowna's Downtown area.
The historic place is the two-storey Capital News / Empress Theatre brick building constructed in 1919, and located at 285-297 Bernard Avenue in Kelowna's Downtown area.
The historic place is the single-storey brick Raymer Block, a commercial building constructed in 1917 and located at 289-299 Bernard Avenue in Kelowna's Downtown area.
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