Citizens outraged as province demolishes Sandbanks Park heritage households towards municipality’s needs

The mayor of Prince Edward County wrote letters. Heritage advocates hired a lawyer. But it was not sufficient to end the demolition Thursday of two historic properties that have stood abandoned for many years at Sandbanks Provincial Park.

The demolition that took inhabitants by surprise is drawing comparisons to the Ontario government’s endeavor to demolish the Dominion Foundry properties in Toronto earlier this yr and its approach to expropriate the To start with Parliament web-site where Upper Canada’s initially parliament structures stood.

Peter Lockyer, aspect of the Prince Edward County team that attempted to persuade Ontario Parks to preserve and repurpose the homes, rushed out to photograph the destruction when he read the wrecking crew had moved on the park.

“They commenced with the MacDonald making, destroying it adequate so it is further than mend. Then they moved on to the Hyatt household and it is now levelled,” he wrote in an email to the Star.

The properties that day back again to the 1860s and 1870s were at first farm properties the owners turned into hospitality enterprises, groundbreaking the tourism marketplace on that aspect of Lake Ontario about two and a half hrs east of Toronto.

“The community men and women are incredibly attached to these buildings. Some of their 1st positions were being serving in individuals eating places,” stated Liz Driver, a spokesperson for Conserve Heritage Sandbanks Residences.

“From the exterior they appear a minor shabby but they’re in fact brick buildings on limestone foundations. They are flawlessly restorable. We are perplexed the province simply cannot see the opportunity for adaptive reuse,” she claimed on Wednesday, just before learning of the Thursday demolition.

The Ontario governing administration states the properties posed a health and fitness and security hazard. They experienced no major heritage value with the exception of a hog lose that will be preserved, Minister of the Surroundings, Conservation and Parks David Piccini wrote to Prince Edward County Mayor Steve Ferguson.

Piccini’s letter suggests there ended up only five remarks posted to a web page the province established up to solicit community enter.

“No personal entities have stepped forward with funding and a extensive strategy and/or business enterprise circumstance. Even if private funding was secured for the renovation of both equally properties, Ontario Parks would even now incur annual costs. Specified the results in the experiments, it would (be) inappropriate to use taxpayer pounds for this reason,” the minister wrote.

Charts from authorities consultants, Letourneau Heritage, stated that, whilst the MacDonald farm buildings are essential in defining the character of the location, “they are not landmarks.”

On Thursday, the minister’s spokesperson, Andrew Kennedy, mentioned the demolition of both equally houses was finished as scheduled.

County residents say the government’s consultants downplayed the heritage value of the houses and Ontario Parks manufactured no effort to speak specifically to them.

“You’d have to be a cyber sleuth to have identified their internet site,” said Lockyer.

Toronto heritage architect Philip Evans approached the ministry previous year with a proposal to solicit private builders, who would renovate the houses and operate them in the park for a 50-12 months lease period. He claimed the site would have worked well as a satellite for Prince Edward County’s boutique motels or offerings in Sandbanks alone significantly like yurts or other “glamping” ordeals. He approximated it would expense about $400,000 to $500,000 to renovate each and every of the properties.

“A 50-calendar year lease offers the trader time to retrieve their expenditure and make a thing of the hard work. The types are there. We see them each individual day,” stated Evans.

He identified as the Sandbanks qualities “a skipped opportunity that could have been a get for all people.”

Ferguson claimed he was let down to study of the demolition. “County council experienced joined calls encouraging the ministry to look for modern alternatives for preservation as an choice to demolition,” reported the mayor.

The Toronto law firm representing Preserve Heritage Sandbanks Houses said the authorities was informed last Friday that a courtroom software was remaining filed to halt the demolition.

In a earlier court docket software that was afterwards withdrawn, the government had advised an Ontario Divisional Court docket that no demolition was heading to take place right up until Sept. 15 and still on Sept. 9 the demolition occurred, stated Eric Gillespie.

But Piccini’s spokesperson explained the Sept. 15 courtroom hearing date no for a longer time used due to the fact the original courtroom software was withdrawn.

“Once that case was withdrawn, the day was vacated by the courts and does not have any bearing on today’s demolition date,” said Kennedy.

Gillespie explained it’s not nevertheless apparent what the residents’ up coming measures will be. No matter what occurs, he mentioned, “There continue to appears to be a genuine need to have to tackle the underlying difficulty, which is the government’s failure to comply with their personal laws, not only in Prince Edward County, but in other places.

“They have been taken to activity about the Foundry buildings in this article in Toronto. That was also an case in point of the govt not next their personal procedures all around these sort of situations,” he explained.

“What the laws states is we don’t select and pick after a house has heritage price, we attempt to protect it. The moment a assets is a heritage assets it inherently has great benefit and the federal government regarded that several decades ago by declaring demolition is the very very last resort for any heritage property,” explained Gillespie.

Driver said Prince Edward County “is overwhelmed with advancement applications due to the fact so numerous people can see the likely of turning aged barns and outdated churches into fantastic places for people today to experience. If the non-public sector can do these wonderful issues with old properties, allow us assist the general public sector.”