2. Another Bandit Demolition: Heritage loses another race with the Ontario Building Code Catherine Nasmith
98 Superior Avenue
98 Superior Avenue was demolished at 6:15 a.m. on Monday, November 30, 2020; three hours before the Toronto Preservation Board could consider a report to list the property, or the Minister of Heritage, Sport, Culture and Tourism Industries could issue an emergency stop order. Another race, which we might dub a bandit demolition, where, yet again, heritage lost. These are situations when the intent of the City is clear in wanting to protect a property and the owner is just as intent on demolition. Several have been reported in Built Heritage News.
detail image from City of Toronto Designation Report
The Stollery’s demolition was different, the question there was how was it that such a lovely building at such a prominent intersection in the City was not listed? The building was down before anyone could even consider protection.
Should we blame the heritage system for negligence? Or is that blaming the victim? The regulatory system favours demolition, giving owners pretty much unfettered rights to destruction. Against this, we have a rather cumbersome system for heritage protection which ensures that conserving buildings is the exception, not the rule.
It's an endless game of catch up in Toronto, even as we move forward with a City-wide survey.
There is a gaping loophole in the Ontario Building Code that grants the right to a demolition permit pretty much over the counter, unless a property is listed or protected by some other regulation, such as the City of Toronto’s rental housing protection statutes under the City of Toronto Act. We lose a lot of heritage buildings in these races between owners and heritage process. Listing gives municipalities 60 days to designate, and there are a lot of buildings out there that will just never make it onto "the list".
Surely, given the environmental and cultural waste created by demolition, the time has come to level the playing field. Why not create a 60 day pause before issuing a demolition permit? It would be a simple change to the Ontario Building Code. In cases of public safety, Chief Building Officials can issue demolition orders on an emergency basis. For anyone else planning a demolition, working a 60 day wait process into their project planning is not too much to ask to give time for the broader community to make decisions regarding cultural value, and to ask questions about why alterations, additions or renovation is not an option, or how the embodied energy and material in the building could be recycled. Sending buildings to landfill, as the law permits now, should be the option of last resort.
This question will be highlighted in the coming months by the debate over the proposed demolition of the Toronto skydome, only 30 years old, and containing untold tons of concrete and steel, both materials very challenging to recycle.
3. Remembering the Parks Canada’s Heritage Places Initiative Robert Shipley, edited Catherine Nasmith
In the last few months, by way of Bill 108, suggestions have been made for changes to the Ontario Heritage Act and the language of designation in particular. We need not look far into the past to find well established standards which were in the process of being adopted across Canada until a change in government halted the process.
Since land use planning and property regulation are provincial responsibilities under the Canadian constitution the federal government has no direct involvement in managing heritage conservation except on crown land. What national government does have is financial resources. The HPI (Historic Places Initiative) set out to coordinate an effective federal/provincial approach to heritage and to assist in implementation. Encouraged by the example of the US Federal Historic Tax Credits, a wildly successful program that leveraged enormous sums of private investment in the rehabilitation of historic buildings, HPI set about to establish the three-pronged strategy. HPI would bring order to historic site identification and description that was, at the time, a dog’s breakfast of different provincial procedures. HPI would also create and promulgate standards and guidelines for conservation practice that could be used across the country. Finally, HPI would rely on good documentation to channel the funding that would probably be in the form of tax incentives, and would use the standards and guidelines to evaluate whether the conservation work had been done properly. All of this work was made somewhat easier because Canada was adopting conservation practices that were well established in other countries and supported by the experience of UNESCO and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).
By the early 2000s the Standards & Guidelines were launched. The new system for documenting sites, called Statements of Significance (SOSs), came into use a little later. The advantage of the SOS is that it set up a common format that was adopted by all the provinces except Ontario where an exact duplicate with slightly different wording was used. The format for a statement of cultural heritage value or interest was written into Ontario statutes as Regulation 9/06 under the Heritage Act. It states that there are three possible reasons for designation, design value, historic value and context value, and each of those has three subsections. Any one or more of these areas of value could be justification for recognition. Character defining elements (heritage attributes in Ontario) are those aspects of a property, the loss of which would detract from its historic nature. For the federal government to be involved in funding heritage property, nationwide standards needed to exist to evaluate and determine if work was being undertaken in accordance with those standards.
By 2005 the HPI documentation system was in place and the Canadian Register of Historic Places (CRHP), consisting of all the documented places, was beginning to grow. In Ontario, it was decided to create Statements of Significance (statement of cultural heritage value or interest) for all existing municipally designated properties. A modest $2m budget was made available to run a pilot project to reword re-write existing heritage statements. A few eligible sites did receive funding from a $2m pool and the program showed genuine promise but in 2006, the government changed and that was the end of the project financing.
After funding was withdrawn, a partnership evolved between the University of Waterloo’s Heritage Resource Centre and Parks Canada to assist municipalities with drafting Statements of Significance.
Over 3 years HRC staff worked with 25 municipalities in Southern Ontario. As many as 7 coop students and recent graduates people at a time worked on the project gaining extremely valuable experience and helping to build a community of professional heritage practice and a culture of conservation. Queens and Carlton completed about 100 sites each, Waterloo wrote over 800 SOSs. During this time the field workers, local planners, Heritage Committee members, Provincial Registrars, and Parks Canada officials worked together to evolve and refine the made in Canada language of heritage conservation.
Then, about 2011, the whole effort came to a grinding halt. There was no more funding for fieldwork. The operational funding ran out. I believe the position of Provincial Registrar no longer exists. The National Register is available but does not appear to have entries for the hundreds of sites that were documented.
For example, the so called heritage principles set out in Bill 108 either restate what was already in place under the Ontario Heritage Act or even set up potential contradictions. Bill 108 talks about conservation “for all generations” while allowing property owners unlimited right of appeal. Under “mandatory content for designation bylaws” a new shopping list of items are required for site description. The practice evolved under the HPI required only what was necessary to make sure there was no confusion about what property was being described.
HPI has been hugely influential across the country in setting standards for heritage practice, but without funding to assist provinces and municipalities to continue towards a national standard we may see the return of balkanized standards across the country, giving the federal government an easy excuse as to why they cannot fund heritage projects. It is worrying that the current Ontario government seems to be moving away from the promise of HPI, unnecessarily re-inventing language.
4. Toronto Star: Minister Lisa McLeod Remarks, December 17, 2020 Kristin Rushowy
Covid-19 hit the tourism industry the hardest — and it will take years to recover, province says
Ontario’s hard-hit tourism industry will take years to recover and must also adapt to changes because of COVID-19, says Minister Lisa MacLeod.
In unveiling a five-year list of priorities for the sector — including a focus on revitalizing Ontario Place, offering year-round activities across the province, promoting Indigenous and LGBTQ tourism events, as well as e-gaming — the government said it will hold consultations and hopes to have a firm strategy in place by the spring.
“Any plan to rescue and support these sectors must consider our new social reality — and not only our recovery from the immediate crisis,” MacLeod said.
“For those who depend on our heritage, sport, tourism and culture sectors for their livelihoods, the long-term economic damage from the COVID-19 pandemic will extend far beyond any short-term measures we take to combat it. This is because the virus is already changing our individual behaviours in significant, long-lasting ways.”
She said that with the tourism priorities, “we tried to be realistic — we wanted to make sure everything we do is achievable over a five-year period” and safe. That means travel won’t be promoted any time soon, and large, in-person events are unlikely for next summer.
MacLeod said the sector has had to contend with the health, economic and social impacts of COVID-19.
“The pandemic is changing us,” she said. “We have become anxious about congregating in small crowds and less confident about engaging in experiences outside our immediate local comfort zones. Some of these anxieties are well-founded and based on solid public health guidance, others are rooted in more generalized fears. No matter how substantiated, these behavioural changes are very real and could endure, affecting our personal and social habits until a vaccine has been widely distributed, and perhaps longer.”
Pre-pandemic, the province’s tourism, sport, heritage and culture contributed $75 billion in economic activity and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Today, one in every four unemployed people in Ontario is from the sector....
Editor's Note: The most exciting heritage news here was the promise that all of the significant features of Ontario Place, the cinesphere, the pods, William Davis Trail and Trillium Park will remain. This was great news for Ontario Place 4 All, who have declared victory. Two years ago the previous Minister was on record that all could and should be demolished.
5. Globe and Mail: Listing 1000 Properties at Once in Toronto Dave LeBlanc
Toronto embarks on a new heritage preservation strategy
Coffee Time's curved wall at Cedarvale Avenue.
DAVE LEBLANC/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
I’m sorry Di Rosa shoes, but you’ll never make the cut. And that goes for No. 1 Sam’s Hair Styling Place, Trecce, Local 1794, and quite a few others I spy from my vantage point across the street.
As nice as your century-old buildings are, and despite your recent listing on the City of Toronto’s Heritage Register – along with my property and dozens of others on Danforth Avenue, a few on Dawes Road, and one each on Coxwell and Chisholm avenues – your blank stucco faces, modern doors and windows, and general lack of anything heritage-worthy suggests you’ll never move up a step to be designated.
Which means your owners will never have to worry should they decide to demolish you and erect a six-storey building in your place. Nope, all they’ll have to do is get a Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) done and wait 60 days before swinging that ol’ wrecking ball.
Then why have I seen so much concern on social media about these 165 properties being listed? Why did a letter from the legal representative of the owner of Nos. 2928 and 2930 Danforth Ave., claim that listing “will make it more difficult to develop and improve them in the future and will deter investment” (as found on the City of Toronto website)? Why did the law firm Cassels blog that while “the [Ontario Heritage] Act distinguishes between listed properties and designated properties, the impact on property owners may be the same”?
Fear of the unknown, I guess. So, let’s make it known.
6. Chronicle Herald: Loss of 1760's Reid House, Avonport, Nova Scotia Elizabeth Spence
Demolition of Reid House erases part of Nova Scotia’s history
There was a house in Avonport. It was old. Very old. Over 200 years, they said. The 1760s. Before the American Revolution, before the French Revolution, thick in the turmoil of the expulsion of the Acadians from the province. Yet young enough to have survived in the living memory of the great-great-or-more-grandparents of those who today are ancient themselves. The old Reid House, they called it.
I visited the old Reid house in the 1980s. As I drove up the highway from Halifax, suddenly there it was: distantly gleaming in the sunlight, deeply anchored in the landscape, a sight as inviting to me in the 20th century as it must have been to thirsty travelers near the beginning when it was known as Witter’s Tavern, named after the man, Samuel, who probably built it. I imagined it without the modern roadways, and later learned that when these were constructed, transecting the property, there were battles to stop expropriation and demolition. The house won, that time. Arriving at my destination, I saw a pleasing jumble of buildings, some added on at various stages in the house’s history. The outstanding feature, the one that enchanted most with its innate beauty, was the sweep of the roof down over the porch viewed from the gable ends. As well, the almost symmetry of the windows gave a warming sense of attempts at harmony, balance and proportion.
Inside, the air, the atmosphere, quivering with the past, welcomed and embraced. “This is you. This is everyone,” it seemed to say. Of course it was.
Work was being done inside. Questions: how to preserve the sense of place in the details. The rare beehive oven, the woodwork. But above all, the most amazing discovery: under layers of wallpaper, done in graphite on the plaster wall, was a drawing. It portrayed a man in an early soldier’s uniform embracing a woman with closed eyes. Gentle, sad, whispering softly to those who would listen. To me, the woman seemed like a mother, breathing her last, perhaps, or already starting her last sleep; or possibly a couple parting as if forever. A timeless historical document. Poignant. Fundamental.
7. BlogTO: Cabbagetown History Anastasiya Romanska
The History of Cabbagetown
Cabbagetown is Toronto's only neighbourhood named after the vegetables that grew there. Its history is rich with stories of immigrants and working-class residents, but it's now one of the city's most gentrified neighbourhoods.
Its river roughly spans the area between Gerrard Street, the Don River, as well as Wellesley and Sherbourne streets and the St. James Cemetery. The river is actually the reason why people originally settled here.
Site of "Castle Frank," west of the Don River in 1880.
The first house was built in the area in the late 1700s. It was a log cabin near present-day Bloor Street and the Don River. It was owned by the Simcoe Family and named Castle Frank, after their son Francis.
Cabbagetown police station in 1946.
Irish immigrants grew tons of cabbage
Until the 1840s Cabbagetown was mostly farmland, but Ireland's potato famine was about to change that. Thousands of Irish immigrants were forced to leave their country as the famine took over their lives.
During this time, Cabbagetown actually referred to the area south of Gerrard Street, the north side was called Don Vale.
The Irish immigrants settled just east of Toronto and built small cottages. Times were still tough for these residents and in order to feed their families, people grew vegetables in their front yards.
Cabbage was by far the most popular, hence the name of the neighbourhood. This was because cabbage took particularly well to the area's soil, was easy to cook with and lasted a long time.
In the late 1800s, wealthier residents moved into the neighbourhood, further developing the area. Homes were built to be tall, skinny and asymmetrical, with protruding windows. Nowadays this Victorian Gothic style is often referred to as Cabbagetown style.
8. Toronto Star: Indigenous artifacts found on Parliament Hill Alex Ballingall
The human history of Ottawa Valley is thousands of years old. Archeologists may have found a piece of it on Parliament Hill
OTTAWA—Archeologists working on Parliament Hill have discovered a relic of Indigenous life that one Algonquin leader sees as a symbol of his people’s long history in what is now the heart of Canadian political power.
The jagged stone point was unearthed last year on the east side of Centre Block, but its discovery was not publicized as officials worked with Algonquin communities to authenticate the object, the Star has learned.
Stephen Jarrett, the lead archeologist for the ongoing renovation of Parliament’s Centre Block, said this week that while such an object is “not an uncommon find,” the stone point joins just a small handful of Indigenous artifacts ever discovered on Parliament Hill.
“It’s about the size of my palm, and it could be used as a knife or a projectile,” Jarrett said this week in response to inquiries from the Star.
He said the point is made of chert, a type of sedimentary stone most often used for implements of this type. And while the point was unearthed in what Jarrett calls “disturbed soil” — earth that has been dug up and moved, most likely during construction of Parliament — the soil it was in “is natural to the site.”
That means “it came from a source nearby, but finding exactly where it came from is impossible,” Jarrett said.
For Douglas Odjick, a band council member responsible for education and culture with the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, this artifact of “an original world” is a testament to the longevity of his Algonquin nation in an area they still claim as unceded and unsurrendered territory. Based on the assessment of Ian Badgley, the top archeologist with the National Capital Commission, Odjick said the stone point is likely 4,000 years old and dates to a time when the confluence of the Ottawa, Gatineau and Rideau Rivers — along with all their tributaries that stretch out into the surrounding area — served as a great hub of regional trade activity.
9. Globe and Mail: Obituary - Geoffrey Massey Adele Weder
Pioneer of West Coast Modernism helped shape Vancouver culture
Geoffrey Massey, portrait taken in Vancouver, Dec. 24, 2010
He was the son of a movie star, the nephew of the first Canadian-born governor-general, and the descendent of farm-tool manufacturers who begat one of the richest and most powerful families in the nation. But Geoffrey Massey was his own man, and when it came time to establish his career, he chose architecture. By the time by Mr. Massey died in Vancouver this month at age 96, he had helped shape buildings and communities across the land.
Among architects, much of Mr. Massey’s renown derives from his 15-year association with Arthur Erickson, which began in the mid-1950s. Their partnership produced an array of landmark houses, plus two large-scale masterpieces: the MacMillan Bloedel headquarters on Vancouver’s West Georgia Street and Simon Fraser University on nearby Burnaby Mountain.
At Erickson/Massey Architects, their complementary talents and personalities made them a symbiotic team. Mr. Erickson focused on the conceptual design work, while Mr. Massey provided a broad urban outlook and administrative oversight. As their portfolio grew, they attracted emerging talents, including Bruno Freschi, Bo Helliwell and Nick Milkovich, all of whom later established notable practices of their own.
Mr. Erickson served as the main spokesman and front man for the firm, but Mr. Massey – tall, dark, handsome and taciturn – commanded attention just by entering a room. When Mr. Erickson was away on his frequent travels, Mr. Massey’s reliable presence became the ballast that stabilized the firm.
“Geoff and Arthur were a dynamic pair together, bringing in corporate and institutional work at that time,” Mr. Helliwell recalls. “Both of them had radio-announcer voices. Arthur had the social connections in Vancouver and Geoff through the Massey family had connections across the country.”
10. Globe and Mail: Death of Architect Barry Sampson Alex Bozikovic
Architect Barry Sampson was deeply committed to creating energy-efficient buildings
Barry Sampson’s family cottage was essentially falling down. The place on Ontario’s Beech Lake had been built by Mr. Sampson’s late father in the 1940s, its structure was failing, “and cottages like it were being demolished all around the lake,” recalls his life partner, Judi Coburn, of the place in Haliburton, Ont. But instead Mr. Sampson, an architect, and Ms. Coburn, a teacher and writer, rebuilt the place.
They had it raised nine feet and, after teaching themselves about construction, built an energy-efficient new structure below and around it. “He was good at imagining how you can take something that seems impossible, and – with 10 years of recruiting all your friends and family to help you – turn it into something quite beautiful,” Ms. Coburn recalls. This effort reflected Mr. Sampson’s approach as an architect: hands-on, a bit unorthodox, and deeply committed to sustainability.
Mr. Sampson, who died Dec. 5 of esophageal cancer, was a long-time partner in the firm Baird Sampson Neuert and also an admired professor of architecture at the University of Toronto. In both roles, and in life, he was a principled advocate of environmental sustainability and social justice.
“He was both a teacher and a practitioner, and he was exceptionally good at both,” said Brigitte Shim, a long-time teaching colleague of Mr. Sampson’s and a partner at the award-winning Shim-Sutcliffe Architects. “He was interested in how things go together, and also about the ideas that shaped them.”
Barry Sampson was born in Oshawa on May 30, 1948, the second of three brothers. Their father, Bill, an engineer and executive at General Motors, died suddenly when Barry was 8. Their mother, Bea, worked to support the family and made a point of taking them to Beech Lake every summer.
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