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.
The historic place is the two-storey, brick Commercial Building constructed around 1913 at 1560 Water Street, mid-way between Bernard Avenue and Leon Avenue in Kelowna's Downtown area.
The historic place is the two-storey brick commercial structure built in 1914 at 1570 Water Street, mid-way between Bernard Avenue and Leon Avenue.
The historic place is the partly two-storey, partly one-storey, brick Courier Building, built in stages between 1908 and 1939, and located at 1580 Water Street, on northwest corner of Water Street and Lawrence Avenue in Kelowna's Downtown area.
The historic place is the prominent and familiar two-storey, brick Kelowna Fire Hall located at 1616 Water Street, built in 1924 at the southwest corner of Water Street and Lawrence Avenue in Kelowna's Downtown area.
The Brunette Residence is a one and one-half storey, wood-frame British Arts and Crafts cottage located on the west side of Water Street, south of downtown Kelowna. The house reflects the picturesque traditions and vernacular revivals in British domestic architecture. It features stucco cladding, two steeply-pitched projecting front gables, with lapped siding at one of the gable peaks, and the consistent use of multi-paned casement windows. The house is set well back from the road and is associated with houses of similar age and style.
The Lewis Residence is a one storey, stucco-clad, vernacular house with a low pitched side-gabled roof and a partial width, front-gabled projection. The house features an open, front-gabled porch with triangular-eave brackets, an internal red-brick chimney and flower boxes below the front-façade windows. It is situated on Water Street on the southern edge of Kelowna’s downtown.
The historic place is the two-and-one-half-storey wood-frame Prowse House, built in 1911 with Tudor Revival character, and located in an orchard setting at 1855 Watson Road in Kelowna's Glenmore neighbourhood.
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