By Doug Hallett
Guelph Tribune

Not everyone is happy with the idea of turning an area near Gordon Street, between the river and the university, into Guelph’s first heritage conservation area.
Most of the 11 residents who spoke at a public meeting Tuesday evening at Harcourt church spoke for or against the idea of making the Wellington Street Dam part of the proposed heritage district. But a few people were either skeptical or downright hostile to the whole idea of creating the heritage district, which would restrict the ability of some homeowners to make certain changes to their homes.
The harshest criticism came from two James Street East residents, Rick Jamieson and Cathy Aldersley.
Aldersley said her 60-year-old home has no heritage value that she can see, and as part of a heritage district she’d be “facing things that I don’t think I should be, just because I happen to live in the area.”
Some houses on James Street East “have no heritage value and should be torn down, really,” said Jamieson.
He argued a heritage district would prevent future redevelopment in the area. Jamieson called it “ridiculous” to put his street within the boundaries of the proposed heritage district.
What most residents within the proposed boundaries think about the heritage district idea remains unknown, though.
Coun. Jim Furfaro, who attended the meeting along with fellow city councillors Leanne Piper and Andy Van Hellemond, said he counted fewer than 30 people at the meeting who weren’t either from city hall or the consulting firms studying the heritage district.
Furfaro urged people to make their views known at a Feb. 21 meeting of council’s planning & building, engineering and environment committee, or at a Feb. 27 council meeting where council will decide whether to give the heritage district the go-ahead.
David Cuming of MHBC, a Kitchener-based planning consulting firm that is leading the consulting team for the heritage district, said only 20 people responded to a questionnaire sent to 455 homes in or adjacent to the proposed heritage district.
Most of those who did respond “looked favourably” on heritage designation of the area, while “a small minority” was against it, Cuming told the meeting. He said one respondent threatened to appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board if council approves the heritage district.
One of the people who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting asked what would happen if he wanted to modernize his house and change some windows.
Cuming said obtaining a heritage permit from the city to make changes to a house within the heritage district could add time to such a project, “but well-planned projects generally proceed smoothly.”
If council gives the go-ahead next month, the consultants will prepare a heritage district plan that includes detailed guidelines for making changes to homes within the area, Cuming said.
“We don’t want anybody to be guessing about what is an acceptable change.”
He said there’d be a different set of guidelines for “modern architecture, as opposed to the more historical buildings” within the district.
The concern is with changes that affect the view of a home from the street, as opposed to decks and additions at the back of a house, Cuming said.
Except perhaps for window changes affecting the appearance of a house, no restrictions would apply to interior renovations, he said.
“It’s those changes that may affect the heritage attributes that are reviewed” by city hall for homes within a heritage district, he said.
Asked by one resident whether people might be prevented from installing vinyl-clad windows in place of wood frames, Cuming said this sort of thing would be addressed in the detailed guidelines. But he noted that about half of the windows in the proposed heritage district already have vinyl-clad windows or some other synthetic form of window frame.
The consultants’ draft study report, which can be viewed online at heritageguelph.ca, says the proposed heritage district would include four distinctive areas. One is Brooklyn, the 19th century name given to a residential area from the Speed River south to Forbes Avenue.
The others are: the Speed and Eramosa riverscapes; the Gordon Street corridor from College Avenue north to its Speed River crossing; and a small residential area on James Street East that originally incorporated the electrical rail line, power house and station of the Toronto Suburban Railway.
The new report proposes protecting the Wellington Street Dam and the pond it creates near the historic Gow’s Bridge, and this drew a lot of attention Tuesday.
There were complaints that keeping the dam, instead of demolishing it, would have negative environmental effects and hamper aspirations to “naturalize” the river.
But others said the dam was important for the water views it creates, and for keeping water levels high enough for canoeing to be viable on a sizable stretch of the Speed and Eramosa rivers east of the dam.
Cuming said there is tourism potential from creation of a heritage district, with an opportunity to link places such as McCrae House museum, the Boathouse Tea Room, Royal City Park and the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre as places to visit.
“Lots of people travel to see areas that comprise heritage buildings,” he said.
The consultants are likely to recommend granting of financial incentives to residents within the district for heritage restoration, although this would require a commitment by council of funding for at least three to five years, Cuming said.
“We believe that this area satisfies all the characteristics that make a heritage district successful,” he said.