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Demo on hold for 1937 house in New West

New Westminster city council isn’t keen on approving a demolition permit for a 1937 heritage home while a heritage control period is underway in the Queen’s Park neighbourhood.
Heritage house
Heritage home: This house at 222 Fifth Ave. will keep standing after council refused a heritage alteration permit.

New Westminster city council isn’t keen on approving a demolition permit for a 1937 heritage home while a heritage control period is underway in the Queen’s Park neighbourhood.

In a six-to-one decision, council voted against a heritage alteration permit that would have permitted the demolition of the house at 222 Fifth Ave.

During the one-year heritage control period that is in place while the city considers the creation of a heritage conservation area in Queen’s Park, all single-family homes in the neighbourhood built before Dec. 31, 1996 must receive a heritage alteration permit in order to be demolished.

“Nobody has mentioned the family. Everybody is talking about heritage. Nobody is talking about the owner who has requested this and the reason for requesting it. We have to use a bit of common sense sometimes,” said Coun. Lorrie Williams, the lone councillor to support the demolition application. “This is a citizen of our city who wants to build a better home for his family, pure and simple. If this was not in Queen’s Park, this would be a slam dunk and he would get it.”

Ravinder Johal recently told council he and his family moved from Oakville, Ont. to be closer to family and bought the house in May and took possession in August. They determined the house “is not in livable condition” and doesn’t meet their needs from a safety or financial perspective.

The city’s community heritage commission and the technical review panel both considered the application, with the commission opposing the demolition, saying the house has enough “historic fabric” to be considered for restoration and contributes to the historical streetscape. The technical review panel supported the demolition application as the house has low historic value.

David Brett, a member of the Queen’s Park heritage neighbourhood study group and the city’s technical review panel, supported the demolition even though he’s a strong proponent of a heritage conservation area in his neighbourhood.

“When I look at the house at 222 Fifth, it doesn’t jump out at me immediately as something that we should fight tooth and nail to save,” he told council Monday night. “I think it kind of sends the wrong message to the rest of the community that under the extenuating circumstances affecting the family who didn’t know that the control period was coming in and are now at loose ends, it has the appearance of being unfair. I am not saying it is unfair; it just kind of looks that way.”

Coun. Patrick Johnstone said the application “is a tough one” as it’s right on the edge of what the city may want to see preserved.

“To me, in the spirit of the conservation period, if there’s any equivocation on it, then I think we need to err toward preservation, just because of the period,” he said. “Whether this house will end up being something that is protected by the HCA in the end, I don’t know because I don’t know where that is going to end up.”

Coun. Bill Harper said the small house fits into the heritage streetscape and has a “utilitarian style” related to its construction in the Great Depression.

“I think there is a problem sometimes in how we define heritage. It’s pretty subjective subject in a lot of ways. What its basically saying is a house that was built in a period where people couldn’t afford to build houses, whether they were working class people or whatever, don’t have the merit of houses that come from richer families and have the fancier Edwardian structures or whatever,” he said. “I think that’s a problem.”