Heritage panel places hold on diplomats’ bid to raze a one-time Pearson home
The city’s built-heritage subcommittee on Thursday turned down the Uganda High Commission’s application to demolish a Sandy Hill building that was once home to former prime minister Lester B. Pearson.
The subcommittee sent the file back to city heritage staff, instructing them to complete an independent engineering study on 231 Cobourg St.
Some subcommittee members were disappointed in city heritage staff for recommending the demolition without providing additional geotechnical documentation.
A lack of information is “a little bit of a theme this week, you could say,” according to Coun. Tobi Nussbaum, who chairs the subcommittee and who has also raised questions separately about the LRT construction contract.
The Uganda High Commission owns the property at 231 Cobourg St. It wants to tear the building down and build a modern threestorey building, keeping some of the historic design elements of the structure, such as the flat roof and an octagonal window.
Pearson lived there between 1955 and 1958 when he was minister of external affairs. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for proposing a United Nations peacekeeping operation during the Suez Crisis.
The building isn’t the original structure on the property. It took the place of a 19th-century house in 1945. The high commission bought the property in 1985 and used the building as its diplomatic office until 2014 when it was deemed unsafe.
The building is severely damaged inside.
Chad Rollins, president of the community group Action Sandy Hill, said the high commission has let the structure fall into disrepair.
“It’s a classic example of demolition through neglect,” Rollins told the subcommittee in his opposition to the demolition application.
Action Sandy Hill worked with historical research firm Know History to confirm that Pearson lived at the building in the 1950s.
Ryan Shackleton of Know History made a case that Pearson’s home on Cobourg Street could have played a role in his Nobel Peace Prize and other political work.
“That walk to work every day, that’s where ideas could have been generated,” Shackleton told the subcommittee.
David Flemming of Heritage Ottawa agreed with Action Sandy Hill that the city shouldn’t let the high commission tear down the building.
But Robert Martin, an architect who completed a heritage assessment for the high commission, said there’s no point renovating the building when there’s so much damage.
“Does it make sense to take heroic efforts for a marginal building ?” Martin said.
It’s a classic example of demolition through neglect.
Both Martin and the city’s heritage department didn’t see evidence to say the building was an important contribution to the neighbourhood’s history.
According to the city, only six people attended a public meeting on the high commission’s application, but all of them opposed demolition.
Coun. Mathieu Fleury, who represents the area, opposed the demolition application, calling on national and international groups to “respect the cultural history of our region.”
Subcommittee members asked pointed questions to the high commission’s architects about how the building was allowed to fall to shambles. The high commission didn’t do enough work to keep it from falling apart in the more than 30 years they owned it, the members said.
Barry Padolsky, vice-chair of the subcommittee, said the arguments made by Action Sandy Hill and Heritage Ottawa are “quite formidable” as he proposed sending the application back to city staff. The subcommittee vote was unanimous.
A revised application, which could include a new design or a proposal to keep some of the existing building, is expected to come back to the subcommittee before May 9.