Former mayor urging council to save house

LAKEFIELD — Selwyn Township’s former mayor Mary Smith is urging township council to consider a heritage designation for a stone house in Lakefield from 1858 that is being sold with a demolition permit attached.

Smith says she’s known for years that Habitat for Humanity planned to tear the house down and tried to warn them there would be “backlash” — and while Habitat acknowledges it was warned by Smith, CEO Sarah Budd says in an email they are “used to NIMBYISM” and know they can’t please everyone.

Budd also says Smith could have saved Habitat, council and the community “a lot of pain” if she’d spoken to the municipal heritage committee about it before Habitat bought the property.

Smith said in an interview Monday she didn’t consider that at the time.

“As mayor I was very cautious — I didn’t want to interfere with development,” she said, adding that she thought it was “appropriate” to advise the Habitat chair instead.

On Tuesday night when township council will consider a new recommendation from the municipal heritage committee to place a designation on the property (which would render the demolition permit void).

Smith wrote to council recently that she thinks 44 Bridge St. ought to be designated a heritage property, adding that Habitat may find that the community will raise enough funds to buy the stone house if the current buyer walks away from the sale.

“The community will make sure Habitat is not financially penalized,” she wrote.

Habitat is selling it to a buyer who hasn’t publicly come forward (or said what they’re planning to do with the property).

The property was purchased by Habitat for a 20-unit condo project in 2018, with plans to start building in about three years. But after the pandemic struck, Habitat changed its mind and decided to sell the property instead — and it obtained a demolition permit to make it more attractive to prospective buyers.

Now the property’s about to be sold with the demolition permit attached, with a closing date of March 15.

Smith writes that she knew while she was mayor that Habitat was thinking about tearing down the building and warned Habitat chair at the time, Brian Kelly, that the community wouldn’t be happy about it.

Budd writes that Smith did speak with Kelly at the time, but that she “seemed very happy to hear that a bigger Habitat for Humanity project might be coming” and urged that, if the building needed to be torn down, a wall using the original stones could be erected as “a tribute.”

Selwyn Township council is meeting online starting at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.