Council to decide if ‘run of the mill’ heritage homes are worth preserving
Lorna Cordeiro was tired of seeing century-old homes in her innercity neighbourhood demolished to make way for “large masses.”
Fed up with the destruction of Calgary’s early history and the lack of heritage awareness that exists in a city with a reputation for bulldozing its past, Cordeiro decided to do something.
“I’m putting my money where my mouth is,” Cordeiro told city councillors earlier this month. “I want to preserve some heritage for future generations and I’m willing to incur a loss on market value potentially by doing so.”
The Hillhurst resident successfully asked the city’s planning and urban development committee to designate her heritage home a municipal historic resource and, in doing so, she spurred at least one city councillor to rethink what makes an old structure worth saving.
The designation, which would protect the home in perpetuity so future owners can’t demolish it or complete dramatic renovations, will go to council as a whole for final say at the end of May.
Decades ago, homes that looked like Cordeiro’s Edwardian Gablefront house were a common sight in Hillhurst — one of Calgary’s first residential communities north of the Bow River.
Built in 1911, Cordeiro’s red home is named the William J. Gray Residence after a grocery store owner who bought the abode in 1912 and sold it less than a year later.
Unlike other residential homes recently named historic resources by council, the William J. Gray Residence hasn’t been featured on the cover of magazines or received accolades for its uniqueness.
In fact, its average-ness had Coun. Andre Chabot, the chair of the planning and urban development committee, initially questioning if the abode should be protected.
“When it’s run of the mill, is it worth preserving?” he said after the committee meeting on May 10.
“In the future, single family bungalows might be considered a historic resource, but there’s literally hundreds of thousands of them today … Is that something that’s worthy of preservation?”
Cordeiro said her Hillhurst home, which is increasingly being dwarfed by infills, offers Calgarians an important glimpse of a past that is quickly disappearing.
“People move into the inner city because they like the character and then they turn around and knock down the community character,” Cordeiro said in an interview following committee’s approval.
The heritage advocate, who was a co-chair of the Century Homes Calgary project in 2012, said she believes the residence has meaning.
“Looking at it, you can see how people lived 100 years ago, the people who founded Calgary,” Cordeiro said.
Josh Traptow, executive director at the Calgary Heritage Authority, said the demolition of “cookie cutter” heritage homes is a concerning trend in Calgary.
“If we only keep the most special, we’re going to lose a lot,” he said.
Cordeiro told councillors there’s both a lack of incentives for homeowners who want to protect their homes far into the future, not to mention financial risk, and Traptow agreed.
Protecting a property in perpetuity narrows the pool of future homebuyers and eliminates developers, who are often keen to knock down heritage homes and put up a new infill that can sell for much more.
“Outside of wanting to do it because you’re a good person, there’s really not a whole lot of incentives or reasons to designate your home,” Traptow said. “It’s a tough sell.”
Cordeiro said city council needs to be more proactive and forwardthinking when it comes to preserving residential homes.
“There needs to be more awareness, there needs to be more incentives, and there needs to be more of a unifying force to say, ‘Yes, we value built heritage in Calgary and yes, there are dwindling numbers in the inner-city,’” she said in council chambers.
Her comments convinced Chabot the William J. Gray residence is worth y of preservation, and the discussion caused the city councillor to start thinking about how the city can save more pieces of Calgary’s past for future generations.
“She made the very valid argument that we’re losing these elements in our city,” he said.
“She’s looking at preserving this one little (home). I think we need to do something better.”