Editor,
You can ask just about anybody who lives in Meaford what it is they appreciate most about it and the things everybody will agree on is the heritage character of Sykes Street, the adjacent streets, the Bighead Riverscape, and the Georgian Bay shoreline and harbour area. This was so important that the Council in 2014 passed a Heritage Conservation District (HCD) by-law to protect it.
Now it is up to us to ensure that our children and grandchildren will inherit this legacy.
A developer wants to build a behemoth of a building almost three times the size of the largest building (Harbourside Condominiums) in the Heritage Conservation District. You might remember this developer called us children and we don’t know what is good for us because we disagreed with his proposal.
The Heritage Permit application will come before Council in the next couple of weeks as it has gone to the Heritage Committee already. Although this is being called a complete application, my understanding is the Site Plan has not been completed yet and there is no policy explained in the application as to what makes an application complete. There needs to be a peer review of the Cultural Heritage Impact Statement (CHIS) supplied by the developer. There is no streetscape profile from Sykes to Bayfield St as promised to see how it will look compared to houses across from it, the library and the buildings to the east. How about a comparison with the building sizes of others in the District, Meaford Hall? This building will overwhelm our downtown and tower over pedestrians along Berry and Trowbridge Streets.
It is Council’s legislated right to require whatever information they need to make the decision on this Heritage Permit.
The Ontario Heritage Act (OHA) stresses that Objectives are so important that a municipality cannot pass a by-law for any purpose that is contrary to the Objectives in the plan. The first Objective in the Meaford HCD notes the importance conserving of the Bighead Riverscape and Georgian Bay shoreline/harbour area. A five-storey massive structure would dominate our downtown and surely not be an Objective.
The CHIS does not specify if this proposal meets the Objectives and actually admits six times that its mass is larger than any other building in the HCD – they called it a “singular massive structure.” It is actually almost 3 times the size of the largest building.
The developer says repeatedly that five storeys is allowed although the Objectives encourages low profile residential environment of the Bighead Riverscape, and the Georgian Bay shoreline and harbour area.
People should know there will be a 10 foot retaining wall along Berry St and if you were standing on Berry Street you would be looking up 60 feet to the top of this building? This property can and should be developed but it needs to be done with the “whole” of the Heritage Conservation District in mind. It will have a permanent adverse effect on the distinctive heritage character of the District if built. There are a lot better ideas than this one.
So, if we want to ensure that what we appreciate and love in Meaford is preserved, please let Council know we deserve better. council@meaford.ca
Jim Sullivan, Meaford
