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New West removes heritage status of seven Queen’s Park homes

Seven properties in the Queen’s Park neighbourhood are losing their heritage protection status.
318 Fourth Street
In October, council rejected an application for an official commrunty plan amendment that would remove the heritage protections from this home, a 1908 house at 318 Fourth St. Homeowner Nicholas Preovolos appeared at Monday’s public hearing to support the official community plan amendments that remove the protected status from seven properties in his neighbourhood.

Seven properties in the Queen’s Park neighbourhood are losing their heritage protection status.

When developing the Queen’s Park heritage conservation area, the city placed 86 house in a temporary protection category for the purpose of a “special limited” study. Heritage protection was removed from 33 properties in June 2018.

After analyzing the heritage merit, development potential and building condition more than 80 homes in the Special Limited category, staff recommended the removal of heritage protection for seven additional properties: 209 Fifth Ave.; 419 Oak St.; 118 Queens Ave., 117 Regina St.; 308 Regina St.; 125 Third Ave.;  and 211 Third Ave.

“These houses on these seven properties did not score highly enough in this evaluation for staff to recommend that they remain protected. As such, the heritage alteration requirements for the existing buildings are not considered warranted,” said Emilie Adin, the city’s director of development services. “The remaining 46 properties identified for further study remain protected based on their evaluation scores.”

Monday’s public hearing in council chambers considered an official community plan amendment bylaw that removes seven properties from the protected category, which means they could be modified or demolished without further heritage-related approvals.

Ten people supported the removal of the protected status for these homes, but some expressed concern about the arbitrary nature of the evaluation checklist and several suggested other homes should also be able to be have their heritage protected status removed.

Queen’s Park resident Joanne Matson expressed support for the OCP amendment regarding homes in the special limited category.

“They have been waiting for as long time for this process to be completed. They have been patient and trusted the city would act in good faith. I am asking you to please pass this bylaw amendment and demonstrate that you are committed to making the HCA fair and reasonable,” she said. “Going forward, I would ask that you please allow owners who feel that advanced protection is unwarranted to go through an objective and straightforward process.”

Matson said a one-size-fits-all policy was never really going to work for the Queen’s Park heritage conservation area, which has a vast arrange of homes.

“One point I think that cannot be stressed enough is that even in the very unlikely event that one of these homes is actually demolished, the new build will be subject to a very strictly set of guidelines to ensure it is compatible with the surrounding heritage character,” she said.

Attending Monday’s public hearing were representatives of the Queen’s Park Residents’ Association and the New Westminster Heritage Preservation Society, which both supported the  proposal, although not unanimously.

“We as a group are happy to get it to a point where there are 402 houses out of 702 in Queen’s Park which are in the protected category,” said Steve North, president of the New Westminster Heritage Preservation Society. “Therefore we support the motion of placing of these houses in the non-protected category, although I have to say this was not unanimous amongst directors.”

In October, council rejected an application for an official commrunty plan amendment that would remove the heritage protections from a 1908 house at 318 Fourth St. Homeowner Nicholas Preovolos appeared at Monday’s public hearing to support the official community plan amendments that remove the protected status from seven properties in his neighbourhood.

“This has been a Kafkaesque process to say the least. There are hundreds of pages of bureaucratic documents that have been produced,” he said. “If these seven properties can’t be removed from advanced protection, than I don’t know which properties would be removed.”

Council unanimously supported the official community plan amendments.

 “I am very pleased with where we have ended up. When we started this process it was polarizing, it was controversial. There was a lot of anger, there was a lot of concern, there was a lot of stress,” said Coun. Chuck Puchmayr. “I look forward to continuing on and preserving the beautiful homes in that very, very rare heritage precinct in the Pacific Northwest.”

In June 2017, council unanimously supported an amendment to the official community plan that created the Queen’s Park heritage conservation area.

The HCA protects houses built in 1940 and earlier, by putting them in an Advanced (protected) category that requires a permit for demolitions, construction to the front, sides or visible roof of the existing building and construction of new buildings and associated landscaping. Houses built in 1941 or later are in the Limited category, which means they aren’t protected, while a Special Limited category was a temporary category for properties considered to be protected because of their age, but may not be able to realize economic values from possible incentives because of the physical characteristics of their lot and house.

While there are still some concerns to be addressed, Coun. Jaimie McEvoy said the removal of these homes’ protected status fulfills a promise council made to review properties included in a Special Limited category study as part of the creation of the Queen’s Park heritage conservation area.

“I just want to commend the work by staff,” he said. “It was a lot of work to go through the process to look at each of these homes.”