What's the effect of Heritage Preservation

The city's Heritage Planner, Jim Bezanson, explained in the newspaper today that

• "Consistently, year-over-year, since the (city's heritage conservation) program was put in place, property values (in heritage areas) have increased more than in other areas of the city."

I have two concerns with this statement. First, based on what are the values going up? If this is based on property assessments, one should realize that the city and province have many under assessed properties and assessors work hard at bringing assessments in line with reality. If there is an area that sees frequent renovations and is a popular talking point for politicians/bureaucrats the assessors may be more focused on updating the assessments of these areas. Assessments rising faster doesn't always mean values rising faster, it could just mean assessments are being updated more frequently.

Second, if values are truly rising fast, is the heritage funding and regulation what is pushing values up so quickly? These properties are located in the core near many businesses and sources of employment. The properties are charming. These buildings provide rental income opportunities and large homes for owners. Perhaps these attributes alone would be forcing an acceleration of values. And perhaps, if the market demands heritage properties, owners would be forced by the self interest inherent in a market economy to maintain heritage without the regulations and funding.

Those two questions aside I do suspect the heritage preservation program is somewhat effective at keeping heritage buildings up, though I wish they'd let empty lots be developed more intensively.