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Posted May 12, 2008, 2:25 PM
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Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,032
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Quote:
On guard for heritage
There are now 16 heritage conservation districts in Ottawa, but that designation does not prevent what one conservationist calls 'an awful lot of spot rezoning' by the city, as Linda Mondoux writes.
Linda Mondoux
The Ottawa Citizen
Monday, May 12, 2008
Luc Bédard, left, with Jeffrey Cucksey on Lorne Avenue near LeBreton Flats, said he feels lucky to have won a heritage-conservation district designation for his block.
CREDIT: Bruno Schlumberger, The Ottawa Citizen
Luc Bédard, left, with Jeffrey Cucksey on Lorne Avenue near LeBreton Flats, said he feels lucky to have won a heritage-conservation district designation for his block.
Second of two parts
Luc Bédard considers himself lucky. He lives on Lorne Avenue, near LeBreton Flats, where he and his neighbours won a heritage-conservation district designation for their one-block stretch of historical heaven. And they did it before a would-be developer had the chance to tear down a house and replace it with something newer and bigger than the modest, yet perfectly preserved, early 20th-century streetscape could endure.
"We are blessed," says Mr. Bédard. "Everyone was pushing all together for the designation. In the end, there was no opposition."
Today, a plaque announcing Ottawa's 16th heritage conservation district can be found on Lorne Avenue, where each spring the cherry trees on the front lawns erupt in a frenzy of blossoms, their tall, ancient branches reaching out in a neighbourhood group hug.
"For us, the designation means that what you buy and see is what you get and what you will look at in 50 years," says Mr. Bédard, who helped research and write the street's history, the first step on the road to designation. "We won't be drowned in a large apartment next door."
David Blaine also considers himself lucky. His home is near Bay and Somerset streets in Centretown, where history is all around.
He walks his old dog through old neighbourhoods, never knowing what he might uncover today.
"I love it here," he says. But as the president of the Centretown Citizens' Community Association, Mr. Blaine is also aware a heritage conservation district designation does not mean a seven-storey building won't begin to sprout in a former parking lot tomorrow.
"It seems there's an awful lot of spot rezoning happening, where planning staff approve and the community doesn't," he says.
"The developers meet with the planners beforehand and they seem to say, 'This is what you can get away with.' And then the developers come back and say, 'We're not taking anything else but this.' And the (community) associations seem to be put in the position that we're always saying no."
Mr. Blaine says there's nothing wrong with intensification when it meets the requirements of the official plan.
"But when the exception becomes the rule, of what value is the official plan or the heritage overlay?"
Jacques Legendre, the councillor for Rideau-Rockcliffe, agrees.
"Heritage staff seem to have an approach where they pick and choose which guidelines they'll stick to and which ones they won't," he says.
Mr. Legendre says the city council snafu surrounding Ashbury College's application to demolish two heritage buildings in the Rockcliffe Park Heritage Conservation District started with a staff assessment that suggested the buildings weren't historically significant.
Only when it was too late did information to the contrary, unearthed by residents, come to light, he says.
"We don't have a very strong heritage component of the planning department. They are often disregarded."
Like many others who care about history, Mr. Legendre doesn't think two heritage planners for a city the size of Ottawa is adequate.
However, changes could be coming.
"Out of the Ashbury decision, I did get the mayor to agree there would be an internal review of heritage resources in the planning department," he says. "I hope something will come out of that so that there is a more professional assessment of our heritage."
An evaluation of 456 Lansdowne Rd., where developer Kris Singhal wanted to tear down a historic house to build a larger home, said the building was in such bad shape it wasn't worth keeping. Despite that, council sided with residents and turned down the request for a demolition permit.
Since then, the developer has come up with a new plan that saves the house and builds an addition around the side and back.
Iola Price, a heritage activist whose passion is trees and who opposed the demolition plan, is keeping a close watch on the new one. It would be acceptable, she says, if the driveway were narrowed so that it wouldn't harm the feeder roots of the large trees on city property on either side.
According to Stuart Lazear, the city's co-ordinator of heritage planning, Ms. Price and other residents who speak up when they see historic buildings at risk are doing what more people who care about preservation ought to do.
"People tend to really rely a bit too much on heritage conservation districts as the police power to control everything that will happen there," Mr. Lazear says. "It (heritage designation) is a tool that requires vigilance, monitoring by the community."
Mr. Lazear sees boards of education unloading more surplus schools in the years ahead, with the No. 1 goal being to make money on the sale.
"The school board goes to a developer, then the developer lobbies council for a mega-building," he says.
"The pressure has to come from the community -- that's where the power base is. If they want the neighbourhood saved, they have to speak up, not just once, but throughout the process. A twin tower can go up overnight if they let their guard down."
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008
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I'm big on conserving structure, but I'm not so big on the idea of freezing whole neighbourhoods in the past.
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