Representatives from the Brant Historical Society made a request for emergency funding from City Council during their Committee of the Whole, Planning and Administration meeting on Tuesday, August 13, 2023.
“We’re seeking your support for some emergency funding in the amount of $50,000 to help us as we implement a new three-year financial and operational plan to secure a stable financial future,” said Murray Angus, Chair of the Brant Historical Society (BHS) board.
Murray said that after himself and other board members were newly elected into their roles earlier this year, they realized that the BHS was in a dire financial situation
“We discovered a mortgage was due on the Crystal Cottage foundation with no funds to meet that obligation,” he said.
Crystal Cottage, a one-story house with unique architectural features, was originally built around 1876 and in 1985, City Council of the day officially designated it as a heritage building, effectively solidifying the on-going care and protection of the house under the Ontario Heritage Act.
Back in 2020, a developer looking to construct an apartment building on lands bordered by Market, Chatham, Queen Street and Nelson Streets, bought several existing properties including the iconic Crystal Cottage on 35 Chatham St.
As part of the agreement, the developer said it would sell the Crystal Cottage to BHS for $10.00 and to pay the estimated $300,000 fee to relocate the building to its current location on 53 Charlotte St.
As part of the agreement, the society agreed to pay the cost for the site grading, site works, servicing connections and any related work, to receive the Crystal Cottage.
At the time, City Council agreed to allocate $50,000 to the society from the Council Priorities Reserve to be used for eligible costs (including pouring a new foundation) related to the relocation. As well, another $50,000 from the Cultural and Built Heritage Grant Program was to be released to the society upon completion of the full project.
However, during the COVID-19 pandemic the developer abandoned their redevelopment project and left the BHS to pick up the bill for the over $300,000 move.
While the society originally received the $50,000 from Council Priorities Reserve in August of 2020, because the project is incomplete, they have yet to receive the other $50,000 from the grant program.
Because the society, which oversees around 15,000 artifacts and more than 12,000 photographs related to Brantford’s history, operates almost exclusively through an endowment fund, the society was left in an even more dire financial situation when they discovered the outstanding mortgage.
“We discovered there was no plan or direction in place to pay the mortgage that had been taken out on the building. The BHS relies almost exclusively on the endowment fund to operate the organization, and the endowment fund has virtually been depleted over the last seven years,” said Murray. “…We were dangerously close to not meeting our financial obligations on a month to month basis and to say we were on the precipice of being no longer is not an exaggeration. We were literally within a couple of months of having no money and no way of paying our obligations to our three staff members.”
To help pay off the mortgage, the BHS sold the Crystal Cottage to Dan and Carol Lyn Brown, a local couple who are known for their work in restoring heritage buildings, but even with the sale and the initial $50,000 from the City, there is still outstanding $145,873.12 worth of work costs to be paid that are not supported by outside funding.
With the endowment fund (used to operate the BHS) effectively depleted, Murray and Bill Hyde, the society’s treasurer, were asking Council for $50,000 in emergency funding in order to keep the society up and running.
“The immediate need for funding is to help us operate over the next 12 months while we work on a longer term solution,” said Murray. “We did a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis which we are using to prioritize our short, medium and long term solutions, and our request for emergency funding is critical to our ability to operate in the immediate term.”
Murrary also noted that in the future, the board is hoping to pay back and increase the endowment fund in order to make themselves sufficient from the City, and that they are currently looking into selling their only asset which is the Brant Museum and Archives building located on 56 Charlotte St.
“We have about three different variations of plans, none of which are at a level to share at this point, but it’s going to involve us raising enough money to pay back the endowment fund,” he said. “With any luck, we want to increase that endowment fund to help make us somewhat self-sufficient from the City and we think this can be done over the next number of years, and we’re prepared to commit to working towards that goal.”
Councillor Richard Carpenter thanked the board members present and said the City will do everything they can to possibly help the BHS.
“I’m fully in support of this, it’s important that we have a museum,” he said. “Keeping the museum alive and well is very important to us because if you don’t remember your history, you’re going to make mistakes going forward. …We’ll do everything we can to make sure our museum stays in the City of Brantford and funded.”
Councillors Mandy Samwell, Dan McCreary and Linda Hunt said that they would also be happy to support the BHS.
McCreary added that if the BHS does sell their only asset, he hopes that the BHS will be able to operate out of a City-owned building in the future.
City of Brantford Council unanimously approved the Brant Historical Society’s request for $50,000 in emergency funding but the resolution will come to the council meeting on Tuesday, August 27, 2024 for final approval.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
