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Cambridgite
Sep 18, 2008, 1:54 PM
Cambridge leads in its heritage plan

September 18, 2008

THE RECORD

For too many years, the grand heritage buildings of Waterloo Region have been sitting targets for bulldozer drivers and wrecking ball operators. For too long, the area's proud past has been a disposable commodity. But fortunately that reckless attitude itself is becoming a relic of the past.

The latest evidence for this trend came in Cambridge this week when city politicians voted to make their city, after Toronto and Niagara Falls, just the third in Ontario to adopt a heritage master plan.

What this means is that Cambridge will, in the near future, do an inventory of its historic buildings. Then it can determine what in the entire community is most in need of preserving while planning how the city can grow and change yet conserve its past.

So much in so many parts of Cambridge is worth saving: the stately buildings of old Galt on the banks of the Grand River; the quaint shops in the Preston and Hespeler cores; the 19th-century rural charm of Blair. Cambridge council earns full marks for deciding that a part of the city's future will involve preserving its past. After all, the legacy of the people who lived here before us is part of our collective culture. It gives us identity. It lets us stand on a firm cultural foundation.

Other parts of the region have also awakened to the fact that building strong, 21st-century communities does not mean forgetting the past -- or allowing it to be destroyed. The centre of Waterloo, currently experiencing an exciting renaissance, marries the architecture of old hotels and the buildings of the former Seagram distillery with the bold new style of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and a rebuilt, remodelled mid-20th century shopping mall. Waterloo is getting it right.

Even Kitchener, belatedly, is riding the conservation wave. Decades after tearing down its elegant old city hall -- the remains of which are showcased in the city's Victoria Park, and despite letting the old Forsyth shirt factory slip through its fingers, the city is managing to hold onto some of the best old buildings that remain. The old Kaufman factory now contains trendy lofts; the landmark St. Jerome's High School is a university campus.

Keep on this track, Cambridge, Waterloo and Kitchener. It's leading the region in the right direction.

http://news.therecord.com/Opinions/article/416649