GuelphToday received the following Letter to the Editor from reader Alex Smith in regards to city council and the Ontario Heritage Act:
City council’s attempt to designate (or perhaps not to designate?) 50-60 Fife Road under the Ontario Heritage Act (the Act) got off to a bad start. The staff recommended motions demonstrated a lack of understanding of the Act and produced a result that serves no one’s interests. The errors made, once again, demonstrate that City Hall is ill-equipped to deal with heritage issues. Regardless of whether this is due to a lack of expertise or a lack of attention, it is reminiscent of the emergency Council meetings required a year ago to deal with another heritage property.
During the Council meeting, mayor Guthrie and councilor Salisbury asked City staff, in clear and unambiguous terms, whether the resolution before council would achieve the property owner’s desired result: essentially to remove and preserve the named heritage attributes of the tower and permit the demolition of the balance of the building.
Impenetrable staff responses leading to a motion “to designate the heritage attributes of the tower portion of the listed heritage building” is a nonsense. Under the Act, only real property may be designated. This is now a problem since “heritage attributes” are not “property” and so, contrary to Council’s motion, the attributes cannot be designated.
The Notice of Intention to Designate 50-60 Fife Road solved that problem by creating a new one; it identified the “property” to be designated, rather than the heritage attributes, but it is not the motion that that Council voted on. Council only authorized the notice to designate the heritage attributes. The notice published may well be challenged as not having been authorized by council.
The staff recommendation espouses the designation of the building as a reasonable action to achieve the demolition of the building while preserving the heritage attributes. This is anathema to the essence of the Act. The designation of buildings under Part IV of the Act serves to protect heritage buildings; designating buildings that you intend to demolish makes no sense and will embroil the property owner in a lengthy and potentially costly process with an uncertain outcome.
Almost a year ago, Guelph CAO, Scott Stewart, acknowledged that mistakes were made in the process that led to the demolition of 797 Victoria Rd. N. and promised an investigation to identify and fix the problems and yet here we are again.
Alex Smith,
Guelph
