By Stephen Vance, Editor
Small towns like Meaford often struggle with change, and for good reason. As developer Lino Toncic pointed out during the February 2 public meeting focused on his proposed redevelopment of a section of century-old buildings on Sykes Street, Meaford was once a vibrant, bustling community with strong industrial, agricultural, and commercial sectors that provided plenty in the way of jobs and economic activities – in 1887. When your glory days are 130 years behind you and when new development has been relatively rare for decades, with a proposal that would significantly change the face of the downtown core small town residents can be quite resistant to such change.
With virtually no industry left in town and limited commercial opportunities to fall back on, Meaford, like many rural towns, clings to whatever it has going for it, and one of the things many in Meaford feel is important to protect is its history, its heritage.
Mr. Toncic shouldn’t take it personally if residents resist the concept of tearing down a few historic buildings on the main street in the only real commercial area in the municipality, and replacing them with a brick and glass structure that requires permission to be built a full two storeys above what is currently allowed in the municipality, and that could very well be encountered in Waterloo, or Barrie, or most any Ontario town these days.
I would suggest, in fact, that Toncic should be pleased that the residents of the community in which he both wants to build developments and retire in care enough about their community to protect it whenever possible. That’s a community I would like to retire in as well.
The developer claims that to preserve the existing façades on those downtown buildings while building a new structure behind them is cost-prohibitive, while those who work to preserve the heritage of this town disagree. The trouble is, neither side can actually tell us if it is indeed possible to preserve those façades, and if so, how much more would it cost to do so as opposed to tearing them down and building from scratch.
If we’re going to debate the merits of preserving the façades of historic downtown buildings, certainly we should first know the actual cost of preservation. Let’s face it, if you were the property owner and developer and the cost of attempting to preserve the historic façades on the buildings you own during redevelopment adds half a million dollars to a two million dollar project, that seems an unreasonable burden to place on a developer, however, if it would only add five or ten percent to the project cost, that might very well be a reasonable expectation. We can’t blindly say that the façades can be preserved, just as we can’t say that preservation is impossible, unless we have some actual facts.
Perhaps a procedure should be established for cases like this that would require an independent expert to be consulted who can provide an estimate of how much more, if anything, a developer would need to spend in order to preserve the façade before beginning such a development. I’d even suggest that the cost for this type of a procedure, as rare as it is likely to be, should be picked up by the municipality.
Mr. Toncic suggested that Meaford’s future could be helped along if he is allowed to develop his properties the way he wants to, and he further suggested that there are even potential business owners and developers who are waiting in the wings, ready to shower money and jobs on the municipality once his development is built.
That’s all well and good, and I don’t doubt that Toncic is genuine when he suggests that his development could spark new interest in Meaford and open up new economic development opportunities. Businessmen like him are supposed to dream, they are supposed to be visionary, and they are supposed to take some chances.
The community and its elected council on the other hand, can dream, and can be visionary, but take chances? Not so much. The job of the community is to protect what makes the community what it is.
If Mr. Toncic builds it, will they come?
Quite possibly, but what Mr. Toncic needs to appreciate is that the residents of small towns have been promised many things, and as well-intentioned as any developer might be, if those historic buildings are torn down, and the economy tanks, and the developer has to cut their losses, we could just as easily have a vacant lot for years. Don’t think so? It happens all the time.
Residents, on the other hand, need to realize that this community is stagnant, there are virtually no well-paid jobs available, and many of the downtown buildings are falling apart, so when a business person wants to try to change that, resistance should be measured against reality. What good are crumbling century-old buildings if there are no jobs to support businesses in those buildings?
Most of us appreciate heritage, and architecture from generations past, and most of us within reason would like to protect as much of our history as is reasonable, possible and affordable. Tradition is the illusion of permanence, and tradition can also carry a heavy cost, and that is the conundrum.
