Heritage conservation deals with the actions or processes that are aimed at safeguarding the character-defining elements of a cultural resource so as to retain its heritage value and extend its physical life.

Heritage conservation doesn’t mean freezing a building in time, creating a museum or tying the hands of property owners so they can’t do anything with their properties. Instead, it seeks to maintain and thereby increase the value of buildings by keeping their original built form and architectural elements, favouring their restoration over replacement or demolition, and, when the restoration is not possible, respectfully recreating scale, period, and character.