1. Letter to Premier Wynne re: Bala Falls

Bala Falls, including Native Marker Tree

Dear Honourable Kathleen Wynne,

I am writing to you in regard to the proposed Bala Falls waterpower project at the location of the beautiful Bala Falls in Bala, Muskoka, Ontario.

Four years ago, the citizens of Muskoka Lakes elected a pro-heritage Mayor and Town Council. They were given a strong mandate to protect and preserve all which makes the Township of Muskoka Lakes a beautiful place to live and to visit. The Township of Muskoka Lakes relies heavily on tourism and has been voted to National Geographic’s Top Ten list of places to visit for three years out of the last five years. Here is a video made just this past weekend (during Cranberry Festival) that will give you an idea of just how beautiful Bala is. 

One of the first priorities of this current town council, elected in October 2010, was to set up a Heritage Committee for the Township of Muskoka Lakes. I have had the great honour and privilege to serve on this committee along with several other concerned citizens and also many wonderful and knowledgeable people who have advised us along the way.

In January of 2013, our Heritage Committee came before the Conservation Review Board of Ontario seeking input regarding several heritage designations in the small town of Bala. These were met with great approval by the presiding judge, and the ruling was in our favour. These heritage designations have formed the basis for a Heritage District in the heart of the town of Bala. Our heritage committee then hired a consulting firm, MHBC, who worked with us with the goal of creating a heritage district in Bala. Last Friday, we met the final criteria when MHBC presented before the Township of Muskoka Lakes Town Council on our behalf. The Township of Muskoka Lakes town council voted overwhelmingly in favour of a Heritage District in Bala. This land is the heart of Bala, and includes our most beloved Bala Falls. The Bala Falls have been an attraction to the Town of Bala since settlers and tourists started arriving in Bala in the late 1800s. Our First Nations people have been using the portage route just south of the North Bala Falls for many hundreds - if not thousands - of years. This confluence of land and water is at the spiritual heart of this area. There are three churches in close proximity which demonstrates the spirituality of the place.

I understand that the Minister of the Environment has recently been asked to consult with Chief Phillip Franks of the Wahta community near Bala, as this land is very special to the Wahta people and their ancestors. This is a positive development, as the people in the community of Wahta say they have not been consulted.

I also understand that the Green Energy Act indicates that cultural and heritage landscapes must be protected.

You have said in the past that you would listen to communities. Our community has spoken out very clearly, and we do not want or need this power plant in Bala. Please take the time to listen to our plea. This would be a great time to listen to our First Nations people, and to the citizens of Township of Muskoka Lakes, who have overwhelmingly said the Bala Falls are important to our community. In a recent survey, approximately 85% of residents of the Township of Muskoka Lakes indicated they did not want a power plant at the Bala Falls. They do not want to destroy the natural beauty of the area, nor do they want restricted public access to the waterfront, which has been accessible for many generations.

Please help stop this hydro plant from destroying our beautiful community of Bala.

Thank you for taking the time to hear my concerns, I look forward to your reply.

Respectfully,

Anne Polewski

Editor's Note:
Big News here is that the Power Plant at Bala Falls is on hold pending consultation with Wahta Natives. No lease has been signed between the province and the Hydro Development Company, Swift River. That it has been stalled this long is a testament to the dogged determination of Mayor Alice Murphy, who has held this project off for four years....critical change was the entry of the Wahta Natives at the 11th hour. Anne Polewski has a post card collection of Bala of several hundred images, and gave evidence at the CRB hearing regarding the designation under Part IV for several sites in the core of Bala.

2. Heritage Champions and Ontario Municipal Elections
Catherine Nasmith

On his second run for office, heritage activist and Port Dalhousie resident Carlos Garcia has joined St. Catharines City Council. He will do a great job representing Port Dalhousie issues, and will bring a fresh voice to Council. Also, pleased to see ACO President's Circle member James Gordon elected to Guelph City Council. Guelph also re-elected Leanne Piper, former Acorn editor.

On the heritage losses side, Guelph lost progressive Mayor Karen Harbridge to incoming Cam Guthrie. A local wag ...."Guelph elected our own Rob Ford". Hamilton has lost heritage champion Brian McHattie, who left his Council seat to run for Mayor and was defeated along with incumbent Bob Bratina. Former mayor Fred Eisenberger was returned to office.

In my second home, Muskoka Lakes the results were not good for heritage. Bala Falls defender, Mayor Alice Murphy lost to Don Furniss, who was making a big issue of monies invested (wasted) in heritage preservation under the Murphy administration. Muskoka branch president, Gunta Towsley was also defeated in her bid for a spot on Council.....but she may, as Carlos was, be second time lucky.

Thanks to you all for throwing your hats in the ring, and for landing some of the spots.

I am sure there may be others around Ontario we should know about...please send in your local stories.

3. Heritage Canada- National Awards

Ottawa, ON, October 3, 2014 – Heritage Canada The National Trust congratulates the recipients of its 2014 National Heritage Awards for outstanding contributions in their fields. The recipients of the Prince of Wales Prize, the Leadership Awards and the Ecclesiastical Insurance Cornerstone Awards were formally nominated by Canadians from across the country.

Read about our recipients’ accomplishments, including Dr. Christina Cameron of Ottawa, recipient of the Gabrielle Léger Medal, Dr. Edward MacDonald of Charlottetown winner of the Lieutenant Governor’s Award, and the Town of Bonavista, NL, recipient of the Prince of Wales Prize for Municipal Heritage Leadership.

Ecclesiastical Insurance Canada joins us in congratulating this year’s four outstanding projects which will be presented with our Ecclesiastical Insurance Cornerstone Awards for Building Heritage:

Macdonald Institute, Guelph, ON, Stevens Burgess Architects Ltd. and the University of Guelph
The Don Jail Bridgepoint Active Healthcare, Toronto, ON, E.R.A. Architects Inc. and Bridgepoint Active Healthcare
The Salt Building, Vancouver, BC, Acton Ostry Architects Ltd. and the City of Vancouver
Water Street Revitalization Project, Vancouver, BC, Acton Ostry Architects Ltd. and The Salient Group
Learn more about the 2014 Ecclesiastical Insurance Cornerstone Award recipients.

Recipients’ accomplishments will be fêted at the National Trust’s National Awards Ceremony and Reception taking place in Charlottetown, PEI, on October 3, 2014 at the Rodd Charlottetown Hotel with His Honour, Frank Lewis, Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island presenting.

For further information contact:
Carolyn Quinn, Director of Communications
cquinn@heritagecanada.org
Telephone: (613) 237-1066 ext. 229; Cell (613) 797-7206

For information about Ecclesiastical Insurance, contact:
Sonja Webster, Communications and Marketing Officer
swebster@eccles-ins.com
(416) 484-4907

4. Tribute.ca New Eyes Filming Bala Falls Struggle

Sharkwater and Revolution director Rob Stewart turns cameras on saving Bala

Rob Stewart

On September 22, 2014 at the all-candidates meeting at the Bala Community Center in Bala, Ontario - all eyes turned to a controversial energy proposal threatening the town’s historic waterfalls. Parked outside of the meeting was a 45-foot motor home that unloaded Sharkwater (2007) and Revolution (2013) director Rob Stewart, a film crew with five cameramen, and a Canadian Police certified polygraph operator.

Editor's Note:
In spite of government intransigence, this battle seems to have found new energy in the 11th hour, arrival of Wahta natives and now an important documentary film maker. Construction scheduled to start October 21.

Click here for Link

5. Globe and Mail: 1914-2014 Commemoration at Tower of London
Sarah Hampson

Why London's poppy memorial is so touching

A red flood spreads out before us as we emerge from a door in a wall. Ceramic poppies bleed from the Weeping Window in the bastion wall on the other side, rise in a wave over the causeway, filling the 10-hectare moat of the Tower of London.

Dressed in dark blue tunics with red trim, emblazoned with ER on the front, and high, brimmed hats with a Tudor rose, Beefeaters move through the field, as if on cue. They look like characters from a child’s imagination in a surreal, red landscape. High above us, thousands of people line the moat’s outer wall to witness the living theatre that marks the centenary of the start of the First World War.

We’ve been issued gloves, a red T-shirt with “Volunteer” on the back, a commemorative button and safety glasses. We’ve just watched a video in which a jolly Beefeater – or Yeoman Warder, as they’re called, all of whom are war veterans with at least 22 years of service – has carefully instructed us on how to assemble a poppy, a matter of pushing rubber washers and a stopper on a metal stick, then placing a ceramic blossom on top and securing it with a small cap. With a small mallet, each of us in the group of approximately 200 volunteers will then hammer another life into the ground, commemorating the nearly 900,000 British and Commonwealth servicemen, who died in the Great War. That number includes the nearly 66,000 Canadians lost in the one of history’s bloodiest conflicts.

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6. Globe and Mail: Toronto's El Mocambo saved
Ann Hui

Dragons' Den star breathes new life into the El Mocambo

He came for the sign, but ended up buying the whole club.

On the eve of its closing, Dragons’ Den star and entrepreneur Michael Wekerle announced that he has bought the landmark El Mocambo rock club and will preserve it as a live music venue.

For months, owner Sam Grosso had been looking for a way to keep open the historic building with its trademark green and yellow palm tree sign, which he could no longer afford to keep afloat. “I knocked on a lot of doors … and the doors kept shutting,” he said.

Editor's Note:
Two blocks from my office.....fantastic to see this landmark cultural venue back in action.

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7. Toronto Star: Jaime Lerner at Urbanspace Gallery
Christoper Hume

Lerner fights congestion

As the wildly innovative former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil likes to say, the car has taken us as far as it can.

“To me,” says Jaime Lerner, leaning in conspiratorially, “the car is the cigarette of the future.”

Lerner, who served three terms as mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, starting in the 1970s and a couple as governor of the state of Parana, stands among the great civic leaders of recent decades. Not only did he transform the city of 3 million into one of the most desirable in that country, he introduced changes that serve as a model to cities everywhere.

In town to talk about his book, Urban Acupuncture, Lerner remains as revolutionary as ever. Though his ideas are simple, even obvious, their implications are radical: Faced with the question of how to pay to cut the grass in Curitiba’s many parks, Lerner brought in a flock of sheep. When garbage trucks were too big to get through the narrow streets of Curitiba’s favelas, he paid residents with bus tickets to collect the trash. And when the roads of Curitiba grew congested with cars; he took them back for bus transit and pedestrians.

“When we tried to change just a bus stop, we had to fight, so you can imagine what it was like to change a whole system,” Lerner, 76, recalls. “Starting is important; if you wait till you have all the answers, you’ll never begin.

Editor's Note:
A great talk, and a great summary by Christopher Hume....evening marred by the Keesmatt/Murray dust up over Toronto transportation options....not the polite Canadians Lerner may have been expecting!

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8. Toronto Star: Tax Reduction saves Main Street Business
Marco Chown

Mom-and-pop store saved by property tax reduction

Donny and Sue Lee have been running the Roxborough Smoke & Treats shop on Yonge St. for 12 years.

Donny and Sue Lee’s mom and pop smoke shop on Yonge St. won’t have to shut down.

In April, the Star published a story highlighting a 350 per cent property tax increase that would have forced them out. Following the article, their landlord successfully appealed the assessment and had it reduced by more than $10 million.

Because of the nature of their lease, those savings will be automatically passed on to the tenants, said Rae Buchan, the real estate adviser who appealed the ruling.

“The mom-and-pop store owners don’t have to move out after all,” he said.
The Lees run Roxborough Smoke & Treats, a small convenience store in a commercial strip mall near Rosedale station.

Editor's Note:
This is an important case for Ontario's older building stock. In Toronto where development is running amok, property taxes are set by potential redevelopment value rather than what is actually happening. This puts huge pressure on our older building stock, and the small businesses and creative enterprises that occupy them. To extend Jane Jacobs' thought a bit...New ideas need old buildings---Cities need new ideas...ergo older building stock is very important to the creative economy.

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9. Toronto Star:Toronto's Bloordale--A Main Street Revival
Christopher Hume

Bloordale takes back the future

Long-neglected Toronto neighbourhood livens up without succumbing to the sameness that sometimes comes with gentrification.

After the drug dealers move on but before the Shoppers Drug Marts move in a neighbourhood in Toronto can, if lucky, find a modicum of balance that even when achieved is only temporary.

If it happens, it does so at that happy moment when the battle between the forces of deterioration and gentrification, entropy and homogeneity, comes to an end but before a winner is declared.

Right now, the closest Toronto comes to that much sought-after state could well be Bloordale, a shabby stretch of Bloor St. W. that extends from Lansdowne to Dufferin. Until recently, it was the sort of place where the only locals who enjoyed an evening stroll were streetwalkers. Crack sellers abounded as did the casualties of their trade — addicts and hookers.

Artist Dyan Marie moved her family to Bloordale 25 years ago; friends thought her crazy. It took her a while to figure out why. Today, she’s thrilled to be able to say that her ’hood is like any in Toronto.

Editor's Note:
The critical element to main street success is the fine grained pattern of individual ownership, allowing businesses and property owners to re-new in an incremental way. Intensification, as it has been delivered in Toronto, yields corporate sameness. Conservation of Toronto's main street fabric is critical to the creative economy in Toronto.

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10. CBC: Weston Archaeological Dig Yields 57 Graves

Dozens of old graves found under Toronto church parking lot

Archeologists have discovered remains of at least 57 people
Archeologists have found dozens of sets of century-old human remains under the parking lot of a Catholic church in Toronto.

St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church, which is in the Weston Road and Lawrence Avenue West area, shares its name with an adjacent elementary school that is due for rebuilding.

Undated photo of old St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church
This undated photo shows the old St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church, which was originally founded in the 1850s in the old Village of Weston. The image appears to show grave markers behind it. (Weston Historical Society)

The archeologists, who were brought in to do test digs, found the graves of at least 57 people under the parking lot.

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11. Canadian Architect: First Moriyama RAIC International Award

Li Xiaodong of China wins the first $100,000 Moriyama RAIC International Prize

A modest library on the outskirts of Beijing, China, designed by architect Li Xiaodong, has won the inaugural Moriyama RAIC International Prize.

Distinguished Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama, FRAIC, established the prize in collaboration with the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) and the RAIC Foundation. It includes a monetary award of CAD$100,000 and a crystal sculpture by Canadian designer Wei Yew. The prize was presented on Saturday evening at a gala attended by 350 guests in the new Aga Khan Museum in Toronto.

One of the most generous architectural prizes in the world, the Moriyama RAIC International Prize is awarded to a building that is judged to be transformative, inspired as well as inspiring, and emblematic of the human values of respect and inclusiveness. It is open to all architects, irrespective of nationality and location. It recognizes a single work of architecture, as opposed to a life’s work, and celebrates buildings in use.

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12. CBC News: Crumbling House of Commons puts MPs and visitors at risk, report says
Dean Beeby

12 stained-glass windows and parts of masonry at risk of crashing down

Loose panes in the stained-glass windows that line the upper part of the House of Commons pose a risk to MPs and visitors to the chamber and need to be repaired immediately. Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press

Crumbling brickwork and loose window glass in the House of Commons pose a "potentially catastrophic," life-threatening risk to members of Parliament and others, an internal Public Works report warns.

A heavy piece of glass from a stained-glass window in the chamber has already crashed to the floor, without injuring anyone, and a group of consultants says the problem must be fixed soon for the health and safety of everyone using the Commons.

The report also warns that loose bricks in the roof area of the Commons foyer, just outside the chamber, could crash through a decorative glass ceiling, injuring the MPs and journalists who frequently occupy the space when Parliament is sitting.

Public Works, meanwhile, says it has carried out the most pressing repairs and is closely monitoring any remaining problems to guard against any health and safety risks.

The dire warnings appear in a report commissioned by Public Works last year, and obtained by CBC under the Access to Information Act.

The 177-page report was prompted by a little-known incident in February 2012, when a piece of glass was unexpectedly dislodged from a stained-glass window and plummeted down to the MPs' desks and floor below. No one was injured.

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13. CBC Radio: Talking Starchitecture post Gehry finger
Anna Marie Tremonte interview

Frank Gehry: Most architecture today has 'no sense of design, no respect for humanity'

Fiction's most famous architect, Howard Roarke, destroyed his own building. But you don't have to be a fan of the Fountainhead to want to demolish a lot of modern architecture. Which brings us to Frank Gehry, his outrage, the middle finger and the uneasy questions of Ego and Edifice. We're on Starchitects today.

Editor's Note:
Lloyd Alter, Don Schmitt and Elsa Lam talking architecture post Gehry finger to 98% of his profession

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14. Globe and Mail: Gehry Retrospective as new Paris Museum Opens
Alex Bozikovic

Frank Gehry: With a new Paris museum open, the architect is far from finished

Frank Gehry was in Paris, and he was holding court. He’d just finished a day of press to unveil his new museum, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, and he was in a celebratory mood. As we sat in the café of a luxury hotel off the Champs-Elysées, friends and admirers – and Pharrell Williams – lingered to shake hands and congratulate him on the building, which is opening to critical praise and warm words from the French establishment. “You’ve got a real winner there,” said an old friend.

“Maybe,” said Gehry. “Maybe.”

Is he really so unsure? At 85, he is unquestionably the leading architect in the world, and the new museum is being hailed by its billionaire patron as a “masterpiece.” And yet. “I’m so fucking insecure,” Gehry told me. “Still. I call it a healthy insecurity; it keeps me going.”

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15. Stratford Beacon Herald:Designation of GTR Train Sheds Delayed
Mike Betz, forwarded by Dan Schneider

Cooper Heritage Decision Delayed

For full story follow link: Short version

Stratford City Council deferred decision on designation of the GTR trainsheds to the incoming Council. Strong reasons for designation prepared by Heritage Stratford. ACO Stratford very active in support of preservation.

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16. Toronto Star: Optimism for Detroit
Ed White

Detroit bankruptcy exit plan approved

A judge on Friday approved Detroit’s plan to get out of bankruptcy, ending the largest public filing in U.S. history.

DETROIT—A judge cleared Detroit to emerge from bankruptcy Friday, approving a turnaround plan that will require discipline after years of corruption, mismanagement and an exodus of residents brought this one-time industrial powerhouse to financial ruin.

“What happened in Detroit must never happen again,” Judge Steven Rhodes said in bringing the case to a close a remarkably speedy 16 months after Detroit — the cradle of the auto industry — became the biggest city in U.S. history to file for bankruptcy.

The plan calls for cutting retiree pensions by 4.5 per cent, erasing $7 billion of debt and spending $1.7 billion to demolish thousands of blighted buildings, make the city safer and improve long-neglected basic services.

In signing off on the plan, Rhodes made a fervent plea to residents who expressed sorrow and disgust about the city’s woes.

The Motor City was brought down by a combination of factors, including misrule at city hall, a long decline in the auto industry, and a flight to the suburbs that caused the population to plummet to 688,000 from 1.2 million in 1980.

The exodus has turned entire neighbourhoods into desolate, boarded-up landscapes. With more square kilometres than Manhattan, Boston and San Francisco combined, Detroit didn’t have enough tax revenue to cover pensions, retiree health insurance and buckets of debt sold to keep the budget afloat.

Editor's Note:
Hurrah....!!! We loved our visit to Detroit. So many interesting things bubbling up in a place where it is affordable to take a chance. Detroit is on its way back.

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17. Globe and Mail: EDITORIAL CARTOON [House of Commons] Structural safety report
Brian Gable

(Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail)

EDITORIAL CARTOON [House of Commons] Structural safety report 

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18. AA: The Architecture of David Lynch
Timothy Ivison

THE ARCHITECTURE OF DAVID LYNCH Review

On the 23rd of October, there was a huge turnout for author Richard Martin’s new book ‘The Architecture of David Lynch’. The launch event at the AA Bookshop featured the author in conversation with architectural theorist Adam Kaasa, leading to a discussion of not only the book in question but the larger issues around film, photography and architecture and Richard’s ideas about the ‘architecture of film’ as an area of research.

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19. Style of Mystery Model by an Irish Architect
Ann Belanger

A cousin of mine in Derry in Ireland is in possession of a model of a building. The model was built by an Irish architect named Sandham Symes who is known to have visited Canada. The model is not an Irish style but I wondered if you might be able to ID it as an Ontario style or perhaps tell me who might be able to do that for us.

If it is Ontario, the building would have been east of here - more likely Ottawa area. The model may have been done in his 1880 visit. It may be New York. We just don't know. We were hoping to ID at least the style of architecture and perhaps a general locale where that might have been possible.

Ann Belanger ann.belanger@powergate.ca

Uxbridge, Ontario