A heritage designation has saved a 172-year-old Hess Street landmark from immediate demolition, but outstanding repair orders will likely continue to block the public from walking or driving next to the limestone house.
Heritage advocates rallied community support last year — including from thousands of residents who signed a petition — for a protective designation for 54 and 56 Hess St. S. over fears the historic-but-dilapidated building would be knocked down for new development.
The corporate owner of 54 Hess St. S. originally wrote council suggesting it would object to the designation — but city heritage director Ken Coit confirmed this week no Ontario Land Tribunal appeal was filed by the end-of-February deadline.
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Heritage advocate Janice Brown celebrated the new layer of protection for the building constructed by quarry owner and one-time Hamilton mayor Robert McElroy in 1852, but also suggested “the saga is not over.”
Brown said more repairs are “obviously” needed to the ailing structure, which is vacant on the north side of the semi-detached building. “The longer it sits with no repairs being made, the more worried I get that — designation or not — we’ll end up with demolition by neglect.”
Last fall, the city inspected the building and deemed it “unsafe,” ordering the owner to make repairs and install a safety fence around the Main Street West side of the home. Separately, city bylaw issued a property standards order to repair various issues, including leaks into the building and loose or rotting roof materials.
Two old chimneys have since been shortened as a result of the building order, but the sidewalk and a lane of Main Street remain blocked to traffic more than six months after the safety order was issued.
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The corporate owner of the problem-plagued side of the building, Brown’s Wharf Development Corporation, initially appealed the property standards order. But in an agreed statement of facts submitted at a hearing Wednesday, the owner said its principals “wish to comply with the order” and have submitted a proposal to do so.
As a result, the owner was given more time — until Sept. 6 — to fix the building, which also includes time to acquire an approved heritage permit for the work.
That likely means pedestrians will remain banned from the nearest sidewalk for several months. By email, the bylaw department said the building owner needs to comply with the order and then provide “verification” from a professional engineer before the city deems it safe to reopen the sidewalk and road.
The Spectator reached out to the directors of corporate owner Brown’s Wharf Development Corporation, Darko Vranich and Steve Pocrnic, to ask what comes next for the newly heritage-protected building but did not receive a response.
A lawyer for the owner told councillors last year the corporation’s own consulting engineer considered the building to be “in a serious state of physical deterioration” and in need of demolition.
At a recent heritage meeting, downtown councillor Cameron Kroetsch pointed to the uncertain state of the Hess Street building as an example of the “precarity of heritage assets” in the city.
He told the heritage committee he hopes to bring forward a motion aimed at helping “accelerate the speed of enforcing property standards” in cases where heritage properties are at risk.
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