School’s in for Heritage Guelph as September brings a full slate of future heritage designations and potential future heritage designations. Some of these may be familiar because they’re famous cultural landmarks, or because you’ve already seen them come through an earlier Heritage Guelph meeting. Either way, there are lots of heritage decisions to made, five to be precise according to this agenda.
NOTE #1: If you would like to delegate to one of the items at the meeting, get in touch with the committee liaison before Friday September 8 at noon at jack.mallon [at] guelph.ca or by calling (519) 837-5616, ext. 3872.
NOTE #2: This meeting will take place virtually on Cisco Webex. You can find the link on the agenda page for this meeting on the City’s website.
49 Metcalfe Street: Heritage Attributes and Designation Recommendation – You may remember the Dario Pagani House from July’s Heritage Guelph meeting, and since then staff have completed their analysis and are ready to make a recommendation to designate. Staff have still not yet hear back from the current property owner, but they have been in contact with the Pagani family including Dario’s daughter-in-law Yvonne Pagani, and his granddaughter Cathy Pagani. Not only do they approve of the designation, they provided additional research to the City.
211 Silvercreeek Parkway South: Heritage Attributes and Designation Recommendation – The first report about this property, which you may know anecdotally as The Manor, came to the committee in July and after a couple of extra months of work it’s finally ready to be sent to council for a final designation. Staff say that they sent a letter to the current property owner in June, but there’s no word on whether they’ve received any communications in return.
2187 Gordon Street: Cultural Heritage Evaluation Report, Heritage Attributes, and Designation Recommendation – This is the Kidd barn and the Blair farmhouse, and though they’re in a relatively new part of Guelph, these buildings have stood for over 100 years. Long intended for designation, a process that has been somewhat stymied by the appeals of the Clair-Maltby Secondary Plan, this report comes with an added sense of urgency because the north wall in the barn completely collapsed this past spring.
Although it seems like the original recommended motion for this report was merely about approving comments from the committee, there seems to be an amended motion on the agenda for Heritage Guelph to endorse the designation immediately and send it off to council for approval there. For the record, the property meets six out of nine prescribed criteria for determining cultural heritage value or interest.
12 Eramosa Road: Cultural Heritage Evaluation Report – Currently home to the Sixpence bridal shop, you can find this building just outside downtown at the bottom of Eramosa hill. When the building went up in the 1870s, owner David Brown ran a “groceries and provisions” and lived on the property, and the building has been expanded and renovated many times since them. Having said that, the property still meets six out of nine prescribed criteria for determining cultural heritage value or interest.
220 Gordon Street: Cultural Heritage Evaluation Report – It’s an unassuming building at the bottom of Gordon hill, but the property and the buildings that sit on it have a long history in Guelph that extends to the middle of the 19th century. The building began as a wagon factory in 1850 and then added a corner store about 25 years later and continued to evolve with the addition of a third floor starting in 1929 as the building slowly became residential. According to the staff report, the property meets five of the nine prescribed criteria for determining cultural heritage value or interest.
Guelph Politico 