{"id":23563,"date":"2019-04-18T12:18:18","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T16:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23563"},"modified":"2019-04-25T17:23:03","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T21:23:03","slug":"mayor-councillor-move-to-stop-demolition-by-decay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/mayor-councillor-move-to-stop-demolition-by-decay\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor, Councillor move to stop \u201cdemolition by decay\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

Some property owners have been criticized for taking the\neasy way out \u2013 that is, letting heritage buildings on their lands decay past\nthe point of no return rather than going through a proper demolition process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Mayor Tom Mrakas and Councillor Sandra Humfryes are\nworking to make \u201cdemolition by decay\u201d a thing of the past with new stringent\nmeasures that will impact owners of heritage properties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The duo will introduce a motion in the coming weeks that\nwill open up the arsenal available to communities like Aurora under the\nMunicipal Act and jacking up the penalties against such demolitions wherever\nthey can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mayor announced the move at last week\u2019s Council\nmeeting where local lawmakers continued to seek answers after a designated\nbuilding with an equestrian history on the southeast corner of St. John\u2019s\nSideroad and Leslie Street was razed to the ground before Council formally\nsigned off on de-listing the property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As The Auroran reported last week, Council raised alarm\nbells earlier this month after buildings on the property were demolished before\nthe property owners\u2019 demolition permit had worked its way through the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The property in question, according to a report from\nMunicipal Planner Adam Robb, is considered a \u201cworker house estate\u201d with a\ntwo-storey brick residence dating from the 1960s, along with an equestrian\ncomplex from the same era. The property also held a 19th<\/sup> century\nbarn, a one-storey mid-century cottage, and a further residence dating from\nafter 1927.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Cultural Heritage Assessment and Heritage Working Group\nevaluation found that the property as a whole did not meet Provincial standards\nfor heritage preservation, nor did any of the individual buildings on site, but\nstaff recommended a heritage plaque be installed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lands are slated to redevelopment as part of Aurora\u2019s\n2C Plan and the property owners submitted a demolition permit earlier this\nyear. Under regulations, the Town had 60 days for the application to move\nthrough the system, including review from the Town\u2019s Heritage Advisory\nCommittee and, finally, Council. But property owners beat Council to the punch.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillors raised a number of questions on the subject\nat the April 2 General Committee meeting and Councillor John Gallo continued\nthe questions last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have had some internal discussions with [our Legal\nDepartment] on the next steps,\u201d said David Waters, Aurora\u2019s Director of\nPlanning, after Councillor Gallo asked what work had been done on the file in\nthe intervening week. \u201cWe haven\u2019t finalized it, but one of the options we\u2019re\nlooking at is for the developer to provide the Town with a financial\ncontribution as a condition of Draft Plan approval to the Heritage Reserve\nFund. That appears to be the best solution moving forward, but we haven\u2019t\nfinalized that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Gallo asked that Council be in the loop\nregarding that process going forward and Mr. Waters noted that next steps would\nbe subject to a further Council report. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was at the [Heritage Advisory Committee] meeting and\nmembers were quite concerned over this and looking for staff to come back with\nsome report or status on what we can do,\u201d said Councillor Sandra Humfryes on\nthe demolition issue. \u201cI know in the past, we have done a charge or an\nincrement of monetary value against the incorrect process, so we\u2019re hoping to\nhear back for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But these concerns could translate into further action.\nAccording to Mayor Mrakas, they are joining forces on a motion they hope will\nlead to a practical deterrent against future demolitions such as these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have seen it again recently with demolition by\nneglect,\u201d said the Mayor. \u201cCouncillor Humfryes [and I] have been working with\nstaff to finally, once and for all, come up with a solution for this issue and\nwe\u2019ll be presenting that Notice of Motion Shortly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think, at the end of the day, we only have so many\ntools that we\u2019re allowed to use as far as any penalties through legislation on\nthe Provincial side through the Heritage Act. What we\u2019re trying to do is come\nup with some solutions and some cost penalties within the tools that are\nafforded to us through the Municipal Act. There are quite a few of them and\nthey are extensive. We will put something in front of Council, we have been\nworking on it, and once and for all we can hopefully stop this from happening\nwithin our community.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mrakas, Humfryes drafting motion to put stronger deterrents in place against demolition by decay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23563","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\/p3D2k4-683","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 15:11:12","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\/23563","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=23563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}