{"id":4333,"date":"2013-10-23T12:33:56","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T16:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=4333"},"modified":"2013-10-23T12:33:56","modified_gmt":"2013-10-23T16:33:56","slug":"demo-of-collis-leather-shed-highlights-safety-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/demo-of-collis-leather-shed-highlights-safety-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Demo of Collis Leather shed highlights safety concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Auroran photo by Peter Davey)<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Changes could soon be underway on Aurora\u2019s Collis Leather property.<\/p>\n

Council is set to approve the dismantling of a shed attached to the Tyler Street landmark this week which is in danger of collapse. The move, however, is seen as the first move in the overall redevelopment of the property. <\/p>\n

While the owners have only applied to remove the roof of the shed, the report notes the entire shed building might be removed due to \u201cstructural\u201d instability. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe structure has been identified as unsafe, as per a property standards order issued to the property owner on Wednesday, September 4, 2013,\u201d said Marco Ramunno, Director of Planning for the Town of Aurora, in a report. \u201cIn order to comply with the property standards order, the owner must notify Council of the intent to demolish the structure, as per the requirements of the [Ontario Heritage act.]\u201d<\/p>\n

The report includes photos of a dilapidated three wall cinder block structure attached to a corner of the main Collis building. <\/p>\n

Although the plans were approved by Committee last week, Councillors said surrounding neighbours were concerned over the environmental impacts of disturbing the property, such as water and soil contamination. <\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a tannery, it is quite a polluted property as it is,\u201d said Councillor Wendy Gaertner. \u201cI wanted to know before we approve proceeding with this, who or what process is going to be followed to make sure that there are no vats of contamination in the building or in the soil around the building. Before we demolish anything, is there going to be an expert watching this to make sure that none of the contamination goes into the water and the soil? There are a lot of questions that need to be asked before we say, \u2018Go ahead and demolish it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Ramunno, however, said the new owners of the building \u2013 which purchased the land in question from Maple Leaf Foods this summer \u2013 are \u201cserious\u201d about moving the project forward and cleaning up the site. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe applicants will be proceeding with all the appropriate environmental assessments and cleanups in due course,\u201d said Mr. Ramunno. \u201cThis is the first step in removing the building which is in poor structural condition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The potential contaminants, however, dominated much of the discussion. Looking back over the history of the tannery, Councillor Evelyn Buck said previous advice received from provincial inspectors is that whatever contaminants are now in the sediment of the nearby namesake Tannery Creek, it is best to leave things as they are.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best advice we have from provincial inspectors is don\u2019t mess with the sediment on the creek,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are buried down there, leave them alone, and don\u2019t ever stir them up. You don\u2019t want any problems, leave the damn thing alone, and let them sleep easy.\u201d
\nNevertheless, neighbours are worried about them, according to Councillors Gaertner and Chris Ballard. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey were concerned the entire building was going down and there might still be chemicals stored in the building that are quite nasty and they don\u2019t want to see spilled,\u201d said Councillor Ballard on mistaken concerns from neighbours. \u201cAnyone who has lived in Aurora for any length of time knows there are some great concerns with regards to it being a brownfield area. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs the developer moves through applications and development moves ahead, I think it would be exceptionally wise for the Town to make sure that not only the local community and neighbourhood, but the entire community of Aurora is kept well appraised of what remediation is taking place, and what the plans are for the developer, what inspections will be in place\u2026so everyone is comfortable, everything is above board, and the latest and best science is being deployed to make sure this will become an excellent development.\u201d<\/p>\n

No matter how things progress, Councillor Buck said she believed things on the site are better than they had been in the past when the tannery was in operation. That being said, she suggested the new owners might have bitten off more than they can chew.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no way the owner is going to do anything less than is absolutely essential to make that site habitable,\u201d she said. \u201cIf they\u2019re going to start doing something now, it will be done right. Councillors can be assured of that. The new owner might regret having bought it.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Changes could soon be underway on Aurora\u2019s Collis Leather property.<\/p>\n

Council is set to approve the dismantling of a shed attached to the Tyler Street landmark…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3307,"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_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-4333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/2013-07-31-11.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-17T","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-10 14:01:06","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\/4333","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=4333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}