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New Westminster approves demolition of Queen's Park home

A 1950s home in the Queen’s Park neighbourhood has received council’s blessing to be demolished, much to the chagrin of heritage advocates.
326 Arbutus heritage
Demo approved: In a four to two vote, New Westminster city council approved a demolition application for 326 Arbutus St. Heritage advocates appealed to council to oppose the demolition of the small home they say is representative of post-war homes.

A 1950s home in the Queen’s Park neighbourhood has received council’s blessing to be demolished, much to the chagrin of heritage advocates.

In a four to two vote, council agreed to issue a heritage alteration permit, which allows the house at 326 Arbutus St. to be demolished. A staff report says that although the home complements the size and scale of other houses on the street, it’s not a good example of a particular style and doesn’t have high heritage value.

“It is a product of its time. Houses of that time were small and not elaborate. This fits right into that mode,” said Steve Norman, vice-president of the Queen’s Park Residents’ Association. “It’s part of a streetscape of about 10 houses that have similar vintage. As one resident of the street put it, it’s like a little village.”

Queen’s Park resident Deane Gurney said the small bungalow is representative of a very specific time in New Westminster.

“There are very few of these houses in Queen’s Park,” he said. “If this house or any of the houses on that street go, we would be losing that period of time in Queen’s Park. It is a good example of those type of houses that were built for those people who were returning from war.”

Gurney said there are other ways of dealing with this particular house and preserving its façade, including building another house at the rear of the property.

“If it goes, we are just going to be losing another part of that heritage and community,” he said. “If we keep letting these houses disappear, we won’t have any heritage anymore.”

Maureen Arvanitidis, president of the New Westminster Heritage Preservation Society, said the city doesn’t have criteria in place for determining homes worth retaining, nor does it have up-to-date criteria about the type of homes that should replace homes being demolished.

“Arbutus Street is one of those interesting enclaves that needs to be protected,” she said.

Coun. Bill Harper and Jaimie McEvoy opposed the demolition of the house, saying up-to-date criteria for assessing heritage assets and guidelines for replacement homes where demolitions take place are being developed as part of the heritage control period that’s now in place.

 “We’ve got to listen to the neighbourhoods,” McEvoy said. “There is nobody here saying, ‘I absolutely want this change in my neighbourhood.’ There is a whole bunch of people who say, ‘We value the streetscape, we value this type of housing.’”

Councillors Patrick Johnstone, Mary Trentadue and Lorrie Williams, as well as Mayor Jonathan Cote, supported the demolition.

Cote, who once lived on Arbutus Street, said it’s one of the “hidden gems” in New Westminster and is a unique street in the Queen’s Park neighbourhood.

“I’d say there are a number of houses on that street that I’d definitely want to protect from demolition,” he said. “Based on living on the street and from what I know about this house, this particular house would not be one of them.”

Cote hopes the heritage conservation area the city’s working on will help to better navigate these processes. He said it’s become “quite challenging” on council to have to be “the jury” on each individual application.

Johnstone said the heritage control period allows the city to protect important heritage assets while going through a process to create a heritage conservation area.

““To me, this house did not meet the criteria for protection because it simply wasn’t determined to have heritage value worth protecting,” he said.