Heritage committee votes in favour of Riverside Brewery demo, defers decision on Linen Co. site
The outcome of the Windsor heritage committee's Monday night meeting was very different for two buildings, despite the fact engineers described both as being close to collapse.
The Planning, Heritage and Economic Development Standing Committee voted in favour of demolishing the Riverside Brewery building that's towered next to Sandpoint beach for decades to be demolished.
The owner of the orange brick building on Riverside Drive East wants to tear it down to make room for more piles of aggregate, but the structure is on the city's heritage registry, meaning it needed approval from the committee and council to come down.
"The primary concern there was safety, the independent engineer that had reviewed it inside and out decided the building is not safe, that there's potential for collapse and so at a certain point heritage concerns have to yield to public safety concerns," explained Ward 7 Councillor and committee member Irek Kusmierczyk.
Walter Skakoon has been walking past the building for years and agreed with the findings of the engineer who reviewed the property.
"I think it's past repair," he said. "Judging by what I've seen walking by here I can see the windows are broken."
Demolition by neglect
But committee member, Lynn Baker, described the decision as just the latest example of demolition by neglect.
"People buy a building, they neglect it and then come to the committee and say 'Well the building is falling down we're going to have to tear it down,'" she said. "In the meantime they've done nothing to do regular maintenance on it so it's almost a license to knock your building down."
City Council will likely consider the committee's recommendation in the new year, but if the structure is torn down the distinctive circle "R" that sits over its main doorway will be persevered at Museum Windsor.
Meanwhile, another building on the registry will stay standing for at least the next three months.
The committee voted 6-2 to defer a decision of whether to demolish the Lufkin Rule/Canadian Linen Supply building on Caron Avenue for three months to allow a prospective developer to look over the property.
"I voted against that motion because the engineer and the chief building official made it abundantly clear the building was in a state of imminent collapse," said Kusmierczyk.
