Oakville moves to designate three more historic sites before a provincial heritage deadline
The Speers family home in Bronte, a c.1860 worker's cottage and a rare stone silo are the latest properties Oakville is working to designate before a January 2027 deadline that would otherwise drop them from its heritage register.
The details
What is being proposed
Oakville's Heritage Advisory Committee has recommended designating three more properties under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act. Staff reports to formally issue the notices of intention are expected to go to Planning and Development Council in November 2026, with an objection window running into December.
- William and Lucy Speers House — a c.1920s Dutch Colonial Revival house, Bronte
- Blackwood House — a c.1860 Ontario Regency worker's cottage, old Oakville
- Hixon-Morden Stone Silo — a rare early stone silo on Bronte Creek
Why there is a deadline
The bigger story is the clock. In 2022 the Province's Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act, gave municipalities two years to formally designate the “listed” properties on their heritage registers or remove them. Bill 200 later extended that deadline to January 1, 2027. Oakville launched a Heritage Designation Project to work through roughly 80 priority properties before they would otherwise fall off the register, and these three are among them.
What the properties are
The Speers House is tied to William and Lucy Speers, a prominent Bronte family who developed the Mississauga Heights neighbourhood when Bronte was a summer-resort town; William sat on Trafalgar Township Council and led the Oakville Fair for decades. The Blackwood House is a modest working-class cottage in the historic West Harbour area, linked to the Marlatt and Armstrong tannery. The Hixon-Morden Stone Silo on the west bank of Bronte Creek is described by staff as a rare and early stone silo.