In this week’s edition of Arch-i-text, Brian Marshall outlines how a municipality may directly intervene to bring a property into the provincially required standards under the Building Code Act.
“Clearly, the province has recognized the serious nature of a conviction under the building code and has provided a sledgehammer to enforce it but, far too often, municipalities have bypassed the sledgehammer in favour of a fly swatter,” writes Brian Marshall.
Columnist Brian Marshall will spend the next few weeks examining the options available to municipal authorities for protecting heritage properties, starting with a bylaw called “The Standards for the Maintenance and Occupany of Property,” which “provides the criteria for maintenance of all properties located within the municipal boundaries of Niagara-on-the-Lake,” writes Marshall.
“I’d like to begin 2025 by extending my heartfelt gratitude to those who have taken the time out of their busy days to engage with this writer,” writes Brian Marshall, sharing some of the feedback he received on his last column of 2024, with some food for thought on climate change action and green infrastructure for the new year.
“The protection and expansion of our natural heritage system supported by green infrastructure has become the proven order of the day and necessary to our future,” writes Brian Marshall.
From the future of the historic Crysler-Burroughs property at 187 Queen St., to the promising effects of investing in green infrastructure over grey infrastructure, Brian Marshall looks forward at how communities can make choices that make people, life, history and heritage a priority.
“While it wouldn’t make the pain of increased property taxes any less, a process dedicated to ‘transparency, fiscal responsibility and effective communication with our residents’ would certainly go some distance to increasing the confidence of NOTL’s voters,” writes Brian Marshall.
“After decades of chronic under-investment by local governments, they will not be able to address the investment necessary to bring Niagara’s water and wastewater systems up to date,” writes Brian Marshall.
A heritage designation for a home may, under certain circumstances, “add a little to the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation’s assessed value calculation,” writes Brian Marshall. “However, I might observe that the financial return on investment, which the property owner will derive from designation, far outstrips that potential cost.”
“No one is suggesting that roundabouts do not have a place in our road infrastructure, but rather, installed only in selected intersections,” writes Brian Marshall. “I submit that the centre of St. Davids is not one of these intersections.”
“Here in Niagara-on-the-Lake, I suggest that one of the primary ‘benefits’ is the character and heritage of the town that we have inherited. And, when a part of that inheritance is threatened, I argue that our elected officials are obligated to fight for its preservation,” writes Brian Marshall.
“In my book, this tribunal decision must count as a ‘win’ and flies in the face of an often-repeated suggestion voiced by certain members of the town council that costs associated with going before the tribunal are a waste of money because we’re going to lose,” writes Brian Marshall.
“It is cheaper and easier for a developer to do the cookie-cutter thing, creating a series of isolated dwellings … that do not embrace community but are inwardly focused on the individual occupying family,” writes Brian Marshall.
“For more than 50 years, from the 1830s to the 1880s, the Gothic Revival style of architecture dominated the Ontario marketplace and continued its popularity in the province into the early 20th century,” writes Brian Marshall.
“The future of this glorious piece of Canadian history and heritage is placed in question,” writes Brian Marshall of the Glencairn estate. “Having survived the highs and lows of nearly 200 years, what will happen to it next year?”
“Prior to the advent of machine-made modern brick late in 19th century, bricks were handmade by workers who mixed native clay with water to make the slurry that was then hand-packed into rectangular forms, then laid out to dry,” writes Brian Marshall.
“There was a time in this town when nearly everyone was committed to its preservation, she explained,” writes Brian Marshall. “Unfortunately, it is an ethos that is frequently forgotten or deliberately ignored in the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake in 2024.
“We have a passive system designed to support the interests of private developers,” writes Brian Marshall.
Columnist Brian Marshall takes readers on a road trip around Niagara-on-the-Lake to visit a few of the town’s stone houses, constructed and designed in a variety of methods over the years.
“This pivotal historic property at Queen and Simcoe represents a rubicon — a line in the sand — which, if crossed, may very well be the tipping point that spells the end of a decades-long tradition of respecting and preserving the heritage of Niagara-on-the-Lake,” writes Brian Marshall.
“So, if you thought the battle to preserve the Crysler-Burroughs property at 187 Queen St. was done with town council’s close-fought vote that defeated the owner’s rezoning application to allow for this historic, heritage designated property to be carved up and significantly altered … think again,” writes Brian Marshall.
“It was my observation, particularly given the universal opinion expressed to me by those gathered on the lawns, that many of this council’s decisions are the antithesis of their campaign promises,” writes Brian Marshall, who attended the town hall protest last week.
“To paraphrase the writer and philosopher George Santayana: one can either learn from the past or be condemned to repeat it,” writes Brian Marshall in comparing the decline of NOTL’s commercial fishing industry to its present-day development interests.
“It is past time that we come together as one voice to save the cultural heritage landscapes of Niagara-on-the-Lake,” writes Brian Marshall.
It has been reliably reported that Coun. Erwin Wiens has been heard suggesting he believes the council’s decision to rezone the Parliament Oak property from institutional to commercial is consistent with the provisions
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