Two Cookstown residents will be able to demolish a heritage home currently decaying on their property.
Innisfil council agreed to the request of Nicole Phillips and Robert Reith, allowing them to demolish the vacant dwelling at 8 William St. A single-family home also stands on the property, built in 2017, to replace the heritage structure.
The property falls under the purview of the Cookstown Heritage Conservation District’s (HCD) plan and design guidelines, which provides the town with the framework to property and preserve the unique heritage attributes of the village. Under those guidelines, applicants are informed they cannot build, demolish or remove a building from a property without obtaining a heritage permit from the town.
The dwelling Phillips and Reith want to remove is a one-and-a-half-story Victorian-era home, built around 1915. In the four-tier grading system set out for the conservation district, the dwelling was classified as a D, the lowest possible, and “did not support the heritage character of the Cookstown HCD,” a staff report indicated.
Phillips elaborated in her delegation to council at its Sept. 11 meeting.
“It’s non-contributing to the heritage character of Cookstown and it doesn’t possess significant or any of the character-defining elements (or) meet any of the three criteria established by Ontario Regulation 09/06,” she said.
Those criteria include:
- Design or physical value
- Historical or associative value
- Contextual value
“The building has been severely altered, which has lost the original integrity of the building,” Phillips continued. “The fenestration and cladding are not original, which detracts from the historical nature of the structure.”
Phillips also supplied professional opinions that supported demolition, as well as letters of endorsement from 10 Cookstown residents, a mixture of immediate neighbours and others who live in heritage homes.
When the new home was being considered by council in 2017, staff recommended the project move forward, but that consideration on demolishing the existing building be put on hold until after construction.
That way, there would be time to fully investigate the potential “remaining historical value,” or “explore options for adaptive reuse, relocation or demolition of the existing structure on the property,” the staff report indicated.
As well, as staff mentioned during the meeting, in 2017, having two dwellings at one address would not conform to the town’s zoning bylaw, nor would it conform to provincial policies. Both scenarios have changed, however, restrictions remain in place in Cookstown due to utility servicing issues.
Phillips and Reith submitted their application for demolition in June, and the 90-day window provided under the HCD bylaw would run out next week. The issue was discussed at the Innisfil Heritage Advisory Committee during its August meeting, where demolition was not recommended.
The motion passed by the committee suggested council deny the Heritage Alteration Permit and encourage the property owner to “obtain a Heritage Impact Assessment from a reputable heritage consulting firm and submit plans for the new construction incorporating the heritage style and attributes of the Cookstown HCD and the heritage house with a new application.”
“Members provided comments and recommended that the property owner consider potential alternatives to demolition, such as adaptive reuse or incorporating the building into the new construction,” staff reported to council.
“It was noted that potential alternative options to demolition, including the adaptive reuse and relocation of the existing structure on the property, were to be explored as part of the conditions of the original Heritage Alteration Permit application.”
Coun. Fred Drodge, who represents Cookstown’s ward on council, appreciated the commentary from the heritage committee but led the charge to move in a different direction.
“It’s not an easy task to decide which historical homes are of importance and the others that are not, and to maintain that balance in the community,” Drodge said. “That said, this building, I do believe, should be demolished.”
That the home had been rated a D under the HCD was one of the primary reasons for Drodge to support approving the application, pointing to previous scenarios where similarly rated homes were allowed to be demolished without a Heritage Impact Assessment, including a dwelling at 6 William St.
Drodge also lauded Reith for his commitment to the community and preserving the heritage of Cookstown in some of the other developments he has been associated with in recent memory.
Mayor Lynn Dollin, a Cookstown resident, also voted to approve the permit. Her comment was only to question if the heritage guidelines were up for review, given a decade had passed since their inception.
Director of planning and growth, Andria Leigh, confirmed the review is budgeted as a capital project, but has fallen down the list of priorities, given other changes being mandated by the provincial government on the planning and development file.
Leigh was hopeful such a review would be completed in the next year or so.
