Church isn’t on heritage registry

When council voted in September to place 50 properties on a list of buildings of heritage interest late last year, St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church wasn’t one of them.

The list included only properties outside the downtown: the General Electric plant, for instance, and several churches including Grace United Church.

The heritage list isn’t the same as a heritage designation: owners of the 50 properties can still apply for a demolition permit, but they’d have to wait 60 days before one could be granted.

The 60-day delay gives city council time to place a heritage designation on the property, should it wish to protect the building from the wrecking ball. In September, local lawyer Ann Farquharson told council at a meeting she was upset that city staff had arbitrarily removed some properties from a registry first created in 2017.

That original list had nearly 100 properties, she noted — 45 of them downtown, including St. Paul’s Church.

Faruqharson claimed all 45 downtown properties had been removed from the list by staff, without council direction.

But Erik Hanson, heritage resources co-ordinator for the city, told councillors during the same meeting in September that the plan all along was to reconsider the 45 downtown properties separately when the Official Plan is in place next year.

As demolition of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church began on Sunday, Farquharson wrote an email to The Examiner to say she was “devastated” the church is being torn down. “If St. Paul’s Church had been listed on the register — as it legally should have been — the developer would not have been able to obtain a demolition permit until there was a 60-day waiting period to allow Council a chance to review the situation,” she wrote.

She also wrote that her parents were married at St. Paul’s in 1954 and that they were very active in the church for years.

It’s still not too late to save the church, she said — not if the city, provincial government and federal government step in with potential grants for “rejuvenation” of the building, she wrote.

“It is one of the most beautiful historic buildings in our city — and of significant heritage value.”