Council agrees to demolish house in the county forest

A derelict house in the middle of Peterborough County Forest will soon be demolished.

At a meeting on Wednesday, county council unanimously voted to tear down the remote, tumble-down house that has been used for years as a meet-up spot for hunters and snowmobilers.

“We’d like to keep it — but it’s just not practical, the way it’s been vandalized,” said Peterborough County Warden Joe Taylor.

There are many photos of the house in its heyday, Taylor said, and he mentioned that council wants to set up some sort of display to honour the house’s past (perhaps at Lang Pioneer Village).

But the house must be torn down, council decided, since it is a target for vandals and has become an insurance liability.

Taylor said it’s too bad a group of “shortsighted and selfish” people have made it necessary to demolish the house.

“A few people are ruining it,” he said. The house is located deep in the Belmont-Dummer Block of the 5,000-acre forest owned by Peterborough County.

The nearest road is the 12th Line Road Dummer.

A county staff report states that with its smashed windows and exposed interior wiring, the house is an insurance liability that ought to be razed at once.

Staff has recommended demolition before, in late 2015. But at that time, the group Friends of the Peterborough County Forest wanted to save it.

Back then, the Friends told council they’d been fixing it up as best they could over the previous three years using volunteer labour; they said the county had given them $4,500 for materials.

They also said they would do further work — but they never did, and a letter state they’re no longer interested in trying to save the building and won’t object if council wants to raze it.

The house is currently in bad shape: Photos accompanying the county staff report show smashed windows, large holes in the drywall and exposed interior wiring.

Meanwhile the county’s insurance company also wrote a letter stating that the house is a liability for the county given that it is both remote and unsafe.

It’s too bad, says Havelock-BelmontMethuen Township Mayor Ron Gerow.

Gerow says the forest was created when a lot of farmland was abandoned, in Depression times, by people who couldn’t afford the taxes.

The county took ownership of the land, he said, and planted trees there to reforest (Gerow planted trees there himself, as a youngster).

It’s unfortunate the house will have to come down, given its history, he said.

“I feel sad that era’s come to an end,” he said. “But I understand it. We’re living in a different time.”

It was unclear on Wednesday exactly when the house will be torn down or how much demolition will cost, although staff said the razing is expected later this year.