County of Brant Council ultimately voted against repurposing the Bawcutt Centre into the County of Brant Public Library’s new main branch during the regular Council meeting on Tuesday, January 28, 2025.
The Bawcutt Centre, formerly known as the Paris Old Town Hall, was built in 1854 and is one of the oldest civic Gothic Revival-style buildings in Canada.
In 2016, the County of Brant purchased the building from a private owner, with the help of a $1-million donation from Linda Schuyler, and the building was later named after Schuyler’s father, Jack Bawcutt, who was the former Mayor of Paris for 17 years.
Discussions surrounding the need for a new library in Paris have been ongoing since 2013 and in 2021, after looking at five potential sites, plans were announced to restore the Bawcutt Centre and repurpose it as the new main branch library.
Since then, the project has gone through several stages of approval and despite delays, Council went into Tuesday’s meeting with a recommendation from County staff to accept a tender bid for $35,413,096.
With that being said, the approval of the construction contract hinged on whether council would vote in favour of a by-law amendment to allow for fewer than the required parking spots needed for the site.
The current zoning by-law parking requirement calls for 92 on-site spaces, four barrier-free spaces and three loading spaces, however an application was recently submitted to council to significantly reduce those numbers, specifically allowing for 25 standard spaces and two barrier-free spaces on-site, and 13 on-street parking spaces instead.
During the meeting, several delegations had the opportunity to express their support, as well as their concerns, for the project to Mayor David Bailey and the councillors.
Fred Gladding, Library Board Chair, and Marilyn Sewell, the Library Board’s Vice-Chair, were among those championing the project.
Sewell said that herself and the Library Board were thankful for Council’s continued support and its desire for the best possible outcome from County library services.
“Which is why, when the County came to us in 2021 and asked the library to consider using the Bawcutt Centre as the location for our new main branch, without hesitation, we said, ‘yes,’” said Sewell. “Okay, there was a little hesitation… but only because we recognized the enormity of what we were taking on, a National Historic Site [designated in 2020] is no small thing to be responsible for. But in the next heartbeat, we were filled with excitement for the possibilities and opportunities, not only for us, but for the entire community that would result from this significant investment.”
She said that the project embodied Council’s own vision for the County to be a prosperous, inclusive, and accessible community, and a leader in environmental sustainability.
“We believe that everyone belongs here and have made it our mission to ensure that every resident of Brant County feels that sense of belonging,” said Sewell.
Schuyler later stood to speak on behalf of the Bawcutt family and expressed their unwavering support for the project. She explained that there’s “a natural and symbiotic relationship between a 171 year-old secular gothic building, a state of the art central Public Library and our immigrant Bawcutt family.”
“The word that binds the three of these together is democracy. As we all know, there are many forces at work in the world right now that are threatening democracy as we know it; we have a rise in populist politics, a growth in divisiveness and polarization, and we are awash with multiple channels of disinformation, and in many cases, rabbit holes of lies and conspiracy theories,” said Schuyler. “…In our view, public libraries are the bedrock of democracy. I can’t think of any other public community building institutions that are so committed to serving people of all ages, ethnicities, economic means, religious backgrounds and sexual orientations than our public libraries. …Like sports centres, libraries are critical community hubs. They bolster friendships and build community spirit, and most importantly, in their quiet, unassuming way they protect freedom of speech and democracy.”
Paris resident, David Powell also endorsed the project, asking if Council would allow the project to fold because of a parking issue.
“Over the past eight years, an enormous amount of time, energy and countless millions of dollars have been invested to get us to this point,” he said. “Should such a small issue as parking derail something that has the potential to be so great?”
Addressing some of the concerns in the room, Mayor Bailey reiterated that no matter the outcome of the vote, the Council would stick to its commitments.
“I think the biggest takeaway is that we understand what the building is to us and how lucky we are to have it, and we will never let anything happen to it,” said Bailey. “…We’ve made a commitment to preserve, or to do something with the Bawcutt Centre, and we will. We’ve also made a commitment to the library to build you a new library, and we will.”
Lastly, Paris resident Brooke Hayward, former CEO of Brant Municipal Enterprises, stood to speak not only for herself, but on behalf of many members of the town’s business community.
She said that while she understood the importance of revitalizing and preserving the Bawcutt Centre, as well as the need for a new main library branch, she couldn’t support the current plan at this time.
“The problem is today, if you’ve taken a look at the County’s long-term financial plan, we are financially strained…it’s just a reality. Our region is faced with what all regions are faced with, and we have to do what’s right right now to make sure that we’re balancing socio and economic issues,” said Hayward. “We just recently received a long-term financial plan, and right now, I think we have to take some time to digest that plan and take a look at how we’re going to make sure that we’re prioritizing the need to have infrastructure and services that are going to affect our entire community. …If it’s a yes tonight, it undoubtedly will be a no to so many other things.”
The discussion continued into the public meeting portion of the evening. Several residents spoke in favour of the project, saying that they could make do with the parking situation if need be, noting that it’s something they’ve always done in that area.
Councillors also had the opportunity to ask further questions and discuss their opinions on whether or not to approve the by-law amendment.
Among his other points, Councillor John Bell said that he was not satisfied with the parking proposal, or the way the parking studies were done. He said that approving the amendment would ultimately be a slap in the face to the development community for all the times Council has rejected them in the past.
The by-law amendment application later failed on a recorded vote of 4-7. Those who voted in favour were: Councillors Lukas Oakley, John MacAlpine, Steve Howes and Robert Chambers. Those who voted against the amendment were: Councillors Jennifer Kyle, John Peirce, David Miller, John Bell, Brian Coleman, Christine Garneau and Mayor David Bailey.”
After a brief recess to discuss with Council’s legal team to see if they could go forward to vote on the tender bid, they were ultimately advised that given that the date to accept the bid was on February 9, there wasn’t enough time to alter the plans and the project, as proposed, was ultimately scrapped.
All that being said, County staff were directed to bring a report to the March Council meeting with options in regards to the next steps in preserving the Bawcutt Centre and building a new main branch library.
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.
