City of Brantford Council voted to engage in a heritage district consultation with the residents of Erie Avenue during their regular council meeting on Tuesday, June 25, 2024.
The resolution requested that City Staff be directed to consult the owners of properties along Erie Avenue in order to gauge their interest in the establishment of a heritage conservation district.
The consultation will include properties on both sides of Erie Avenue, starting at 60-62 Erie Avenue and down to Birkett Lane, and staff were asked to come back to council with a report by the end of the fourth quarter.
During the meeting Councillor Rose Sicoli separated the item to vote against it as she saw no value in making extra work for staff.
“I see no value in creating makeshift work for our Staff when I know I’m not going to be supporting it. I just value what we do with our money here at the City of Brantford and I will never support designating a property without all of the homeowners wanting to have that designation,” she said. “…I think there’s a lot of unintended consequences to designating heritage and from my understanding of the discussion we’ve had, if a property is designated heritage, it then places restrictions on all abutting properties. …If we’re going to be consulting with anyone, it should be every single property that will actually be affected, not just the houses that we’re looking at designating. Unless I had every single one of the homeowners in this area saying, ‘yes,’ I will never support it.”
In order to clarify the item’s intention, Erie Avenue ward councillor, Mandy Samwell, said that there is no plan to designate anything at this time, it’s simply to gauge interest with the residents.
“This is specifically to consult with the folks on Erie Avenue and to give them the same opportunity to have their street treated in the same way that our beautiful Brant Avenue is treated,” she said. “I think that they deserve to have that opportunity and $500 for suppliers is a small price to pay to actually be able to consult with the community so that the citizens can have their say.”
Councillor Dan McCreary said that he was on board with the consultation process and would be voting in favour of the resolution.
“I will be supporting Councillor Samwell and her Wardmate Councillor Brian Van Tilborg in this endeavor,” he said. “I’m sure Councillor Samwell has spent countless hours working on this initiative, and that she and Councillor Van Tilborg will be spending countless hours going forward to consult with their neighborhood and ask the question, ‘do you want to do this?’”
While Councillor Gino Caputo said he would also be supporting the resolution as it should be up to the neighbourhood to have a say in the matter, Mayor Kevin Davis said he was on the same page as Sicoli.
“I actually had experience in designating Brant Avenue and the whole process that occurred in the 1980s was actually driven by the people that live on that street. They’re the ones that came and lobbied for it, it wasn’t brought forward by councillors. I will say with all due respect, this looks to me like it’s an attempt to do a run around the official plan that designates Erie Avenue as a major artery,” said Davis. “I wonder if this is driven more by other residents in Eagle Place rather than residents themselves on Erie Avenue and do they really know what the implications are? That if they want to put a deck or change a window they have to go through a permitting procedure that will take them months rather than just going down to Home Depot and buying the lumber after they get a building permit?”
He said that once the residents fully understand what the heritage district designation entails, he would be surprised if anyone would be in favour of designating the entire street.
“I hope that this will be fully explained not to those who live elsewhere in Eagle Place, but to those people that will be affected, those who own property on Erie Avenue. I’d be surprised if there is a majority of residents on that street who, after it’s fully explained to them what this entails, will be in favor of designating the entire street as a heritage district,” he continued. “…I think it’s very unlikely that when fully informed, the residents will agree to it so why are we asking Staff to spend this time on something that I think is really not going to result in anything?”
Van Tilborg said that himself and his wardmate wouldn’t be fighting for the consultation if it hadn’t been brought forward by the residents in the area.
“To be clear, we wouldn’t be bringing this forward if it hadn’t been from the people of the area. We have other things that we could be doing, but this is an initiative, and so our job is to bring them information,” he said. “…It wasn’t just a handful of people, it was significant enough to say ‘hey, let’s investigate this and bring it to the community.”
