Heritage committee rejects one demo bid, accepts another for Gore buildings
http://www.thespec.com/news-story/70...ore-buildings/
Hamilton Spectator
By Jeff Mahoney
Heritage advocates are mobilizing to try and save two historic Gore Park properties from demolition for the second time in four years.
The city's heritage committee, by a vote of 5 to 4, rejected a city staff recommendation to approve an application to demolish heritage buildings at 24 and 28 King St. E., facing Gore Park.
But it voted to approve a demolition permit for 18-22 King East, conditional on the preservation of the façade.
City council still has to make the final decision on the project, however.
The votes came at Thursday's committee meeting, after a civil but passionate round of dueling submissions by several architectural conservancy advocates on the one side and the lawyer and architect for developers Hughson Business Space Corporation on the other.
The two city councillors on the committee, Maria Pearson and Judi Partridge, both voted in favour of the recommendation to accept the application to demolish at 24-28. The matter will go to planning committee and council in the new year.
Committee member Kathleen Garay, speaking against demolition, said she appreciates the efforts of the architect and the developer to come up with a compromise. And, she added, "on a personal level, I could just about live with the façadism (the controversial "heritage" practice of preserving only the façade) with the towering black penthouse over the dormer.
"But to demolish, as a quid pro quo, this isn't a fair trade: saving the elegant one at the expense of the utilitarian one."
The buildings have been the pivot point of a controversy for almost four years now over the balance between an economically viable Gore Park redevelopment and architectural heritage, two pressures that sometimes seem to be competing, especially with the looming possibility of LRT.
The stretch of buildings, 18 to 28 King East, had not been designated heritage when they were bought up over the course of several years beginning in the late 1990s, even though the earliest ones date back to 1840 and were designed by William Thomas. In the absence of a designation, the developers obtained a demolition permit for the buildings, and 30 King East was torn down.
But planned demolition of 18 to 28 was abruptly halted in 2013 when city hall interceded. The developers voluntarily withdrew the permit at that time, said Timothy Bullock, lawyer for Hughson Business Space Corporation.
In his submission to the committee, architect David Premi, who drew up the new plans for 18 to 28, said: "I am passionate about heritage but I'm concerned when absolutist or fundamentalist heritage rules are applied. Sometimes it makes sense to save a building, sometimes it doesn't."
There were seven submissions from conservancy advocates — architect Michael Biljetina, of ATA Architects Inc.; Nicholas Kevlahan, Friends of the Gore; Grant Head, founder of Hamilton Heritage Foundation; Barbara Murray, Architectural Conservancy of Ontario; Rob Zeidler, owner of The Cotton Factory; Diane Dent and Patricia Baker.
They spoke to such issues as the historical significance of the properties in question, and of Gore Park in general; the message that demolition of a heritage property sends and how demolition might jeopardize the stability and integrity of remaining buildings; and of the long-term, appreciative economic value of saving built heritage along with historical character and detail.