Soon a murderous excavator and dump trucks will move onto a prime street in Old Town. Then it’s curtains for a heritage property, an expansive home and garage, plus half a residential block.

When the iconic, historic streetscape sports a hole with hoarding around it, things get real. The next three years could be hell on wheels for Queen Street businesses, everybody living between there and the water, plus all the nice people visiting from Pittsburgh.

The guys we elected to oversee heritage (arguably the biggest asset NOTL has) voted to demolish these properties. Full council did, too.

The houses will be pulverized so the hungry machine can then chew through the historic Queen Street-facing Royal George, plus the heritage property beside it. Victoria will be toast.

So far the Shaw’s $50-million plan to erect a towering, boxy, massive industrial-theatrical complex in the middle of our most precious preserved vintage real estate has cruised through the process without a political whimper. Without an approved site plan. And no construction plan.

Trust us, they say.

“NOTL is well past the point of no return and this clown council has many more months to further its decline,” says a steamy note in my inbox.

“Furthermore, in spite of the sideline efforts to attract a new slate of candidates for the next municipal election, I predict, with their well-oiled email machine and support group lists, the majority of the cabal will be re-elected.”

Well, don’t count on it.

By election day, Old Town will be a war zone. The Parliament Oak hotel will be rising in the middle of a residential block, the glassy Garrison Village airport hotel with its 42 rental vacation townhouses will be jammed with cars, the old hospital site will still be a reminder of what community health care used to be while $600-a-night unhosted tourist rentals will be forcing out renting families.

And, amid it all, will be the rebs.

Almost exactly a year before the next election a quietly rebellious throng is organizing, plotting and swelling.

Last night, the NOTL Residents Association chose a slate of directors. Its membership has gone from zero to almost 400. A list of 19 potential rebellious candidates has been drawn up. Many have been contacted. Some have already said they’re eager for the fight.

“We’re not waiting until the last minute to take this action,” says founder Stuart McCormack, “because that just doesn’t make sense.”

“What I’ve heard from people who are long-term residents — and I‘m talking second- and third-generation families in Niagara-on-the-Lake — is that this is the worst council that we’ve ever had.”

Developers hold too much sway, residents say. The lord mayor is a part-timer and career real estate executive. Heritage watchdogs have turned into compliant demo bunnies. Whole streets have been hollowed out of residents and replaced by folks in SUVs with Ohio and Michigan plates. Condo towers threaten to turn Glendale into Milton. And the excavator tracks closer.

The NOTL rebels’ plan is to have candidates identified and in place well before the race. There may be a slate. There will certainly be public engagements — forums, Q&As, debates. There will be money, as well as passion.

“The whole raison d’etre of the organization,” says McCormack, “is that people feel they haven’t been heard. And that feeling continues.”

The rebel leader (and lawyer) vows this won’t bring party politics to our bucolic little garden. But it will bring change. And transparency.

Meanwhile the resistance continues. The group is raising the legal alarm over water and flooding on the Parliament Oak site. It is scrutinizing the legality of the Royal George approval process. And it is building a new model of governance. From the bottom up. As local leadership should be.

“Like the mayor of New York once said,” McCormack adds, “the people don’t care about politics. They just want the streets cleaned.”

Town hall, too.