Raise the Hammer

The big difference between this case and the Gore Park building is that the developers knew it was designated when they bought it, and with designation comes responsibility.

This means there should be a higher standard imposed for what the owners should be required to do, at their own expense. The City must commission a truly independent engineering report: any report commissioned by the owners, whose goal is to re-develop most of the site, cannot be seen as unbiased. Consultants know what their clients want, and rarely come to conclusions that they know would be strongly opposed by their clients.

As in the Gore Park case the owners are proposing saving only the facade and do not have any clear idea of what the rest of the site would look like. And like Blanchard, they are pushing to demolish now and then think about what to to build and how to finance it later. Both owners claim their buildings "are falling down", although Stanton apparently have stronger evidence that at least part of the building has severe structural problems.

However, the claim that they must demolish now seems dubious. This is a building designated under the Ontario Heritage Act, and claims that the building is structurally unsound and will collapse within a few months are surprising. This must be confirmed by a truly independent engineering report commissioned by the city.

As the committee noted, we've seen this claim over and over that a building is "shot", "falling down", "beyond repair", "at the end of its life". Mostly, this has been an excuse to demolish now to avoid future "risk" of heritage preservation orders. These claims may actually be true here, but given recent history Hamiltonians have the right to be extremely skeptical.

The statement that the freeze-thaw cycle is especially damaging on stone buildings (with the implication that stone buildings are not durable) is clearly ridiculous. A properly constructed and maintained stone building will last centuries, and even poorly maintained stone buildings can last for decades of winters without falling down. Europe (and Quebec) is full of stone buildings that have survived centuries of winters, often with little maintenance.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2013-09-26 12:22:47