The City is working on developing a new plaque program to help celebrate and commemorate the unique historic places and spaces across Kawartha Lakes. We are looking for your input as we develop a framework for what our heritage plaque program will look like so that it reflects our many communities and important local heritage.

Please take a moment to review our project materials and to fill out our survey!

Right now, there are a range of different types of plaques throughout Kawartha Lakes. Some of these plaques are owned and were installed by the City and some of them belong to other organizations.

The intention of the new program is to develop a program for panels that include both images and text to complement the City's existing heritage plaque program, work with the community to identify site where a heritage plaque would be appropriate and to create a consistent look for City plaques. The program is not intended to remove and/or replace existing plaques and interpretive panels.

The City currently has a plaque program for our designated heritage properties. These plaques are provided to the owners of heritage designated properties throughout Kawartha Lakes and are a continuation of programs that existed in our predecessor municipalities, such as the heritage plaque program that was developed by the Lindsay Architecture Conservation Advisory Committee. These are small bronze plaques that are attached to heritage buildings. Our current plaques include the name/address of the property, its year of construction and its approximate date of construction, and are blue with bronze coloured writing.

This plaque program will remain ongoing as a way to identify and celebrate our designated heritage properties. The City is not intending on replacing these plaques or this program.

There are a range of other plaques that have been developed by different community organizations or levels of government in different sites throughout Kawartha Lakes, as well as those which have been developed by our predecessor municipalities or in partnership between the City and other organizations. These have been developed over time and without a broad overarching strategy. See below for some examples of different plaques throughout the City.

There are many different communities in Ontario and across Canada that have historic plaque programs. Here are some examples of those types of plaques in other communities that the City is studying to help implement our new program.