{"id":20890,"date":"2018-06-13T23:22:54","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T03:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20890"},"modified":"2018-06-24T00:37:55","modified_gmt":"2018-06-24T04:37:55","slug":"historic-business-core-should-be-designated-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/historic-business-core-should-be-designated-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic business core should be designated: Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aurora\u2019s historic Yonge Street core should have heritage protection, according to the Town\u2019s Heritage Advisory Committee.
\nThis week, Council will discuss a recommendation from the Heritage Advisory Committee (HAC) to ensure 15 buildings in Aurora\u2019s historic business centre be designated under the Ontario Heritage Act.
\nCouncil members debated the recommendation at the Committee level last week, but how such a designation moves forward \u2013 if at all \u2013 will likely be determined this week.
\nTackling HAC\u2019s recommendation for the first time, the principle of designating the commercial blocks on either side of Yonge Street from Wellington in the north to Mosley Street in the south received broad support from Council members.
\nThe bone of contention, however, was whether this designation should be brought down in consultation with the property owners.
\nDuring March and April of this year, a heritage evaluation working group worked with municipal staff to research the historic, architectural and contextual merits of the buildings in this corridor, which is generally referred to as Aurora\u2019s Main Street.
\nThe review concludes that 14 of the 15 properties considered were significant from a historical, architectural and contextual standpoint, with the 15th, the recently vacated CIBC building scoring just slightly less in their evaluation, making the grade only for its architectural and contextual merits.
\nShould these buildings ultimately receive designation, property owners will not be able to alter any part of the exterior.
\nBy the time HAC\u2019s recommendations came up for review last week, however, Mayor Geoff Dawe brought a note of caution into the debate.
\n\u201cMy concern with this is that we have not engaged the owners at this point,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at substantial changes to the status of their buildings and I think it would be appropriate to engage the owners. My suggestion is what we did with the fields that we\u2019re looking at [with] the Hallmark lands, refer that back to the Heritage Advisory Committee with a request that they engage the owners so they can have a robust discussion with the owners at the Committee and then come back to us as well.\u201d
\nMayor Dawe\u2019s viewpoint was shared, to a point, by Councillor Wendy Gaertner but his motion to have that \u201crobust discussion\u201d went a bit too far.
\n\u201cI will be voting against it simply because I believe we should notify the owners by letter, but I don\u2019t think we need to do a full public engagement,\u201d she said.
\nCouncillor Jeff Thom, on the other hand, said there has been able public engagement on the subject throughout the last three decades and, if HAC\u2019s recommendations are ultimately ratified, consultations will continue in another channel. This would include a Notice to Designate issued by the Town, which would serve as a notice of intention, and property owners would have 30 days to appeal that decision. Should property owners choose to do so, this appeal would be heard by a Conservation Review Board.
\n\u201cThis whole process so far has been a totally open, public process,\u201d said Councillor Thom, noting the review process outlined above. \u201cFurthermore to that, consultation will not change the facts. These buildings are historical, they are important to the Town\u2019s not only character of our main street, but I think the character of our town as a whole. No amount of consultation will change their importance.
\n\u201cThe buildings are historically important, the report is pretty clear: some of these buildings scored in the 90 per cent range, the 80 per cent range, massively important to the Town. In my mind, these buildings, regardless of whether the owners are for designation or are not in favour of Part Four designation, are worthy of designation, worthy of protecting.\u201d
\nCouncillor Tom Mrakas shared this sentiment, stating \u201cwhile it is important to engage and speak to the property owners,\u201d there was enough time to reach out to them so they are aware the matter is up for Council\u2019s consideration this week.
\n\u201cWe can afford them the opportunity to come before us next week and we can hear them and hear [their] concerns. That is not going to change the evaluation of those properties,\u201d said Councillor Mrakas, adding the area is already earmarked for intensification. We need to do it under our terms and protecting and preserving our history and heritage is important to this community and the residents. It will afford us the [opportunity] to use the tools afforded to us by the Province within the Heritage Act to make sure that when we move forward with development that we can work with the applicant and make sure that development occurs in preserving and protecting those heritage features of those properties and we can grow under our own terms.\u201d
\nBut joining calls for further input from the property owners were Councillors Sandra Humfryes and John Abel.
\n\u201cThe reason I am in favour of the referral is because I think there are more pieces than just the HAC. I think there\u2019s the property owners, I think the Business Improvement association might be interested in the thoughts and the impacts of the designation as well as the Chamber,\u201d said Councillor Abel. \u201cI think all these parties should have a voice so I can better understand what the implications are of designating these properties. In my might, right off the bat, if you designate it, it means you can\u2019t develop on it and then you don\u2019t attract development dollars and people to do it. I would like to refer it back and understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Battle could come to downtown Aurora as Council looks to designate the historic business centre to control future development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5qW","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-05 20:54:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20890\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}