Do I Have a Bug-Bear About Heritage

A respondent thinks that for someone who "loves the old days"I seem to have a" bug-bear about Heritage."

You are partly right. For one thing, "the old days" for me are yesterday.

I do appreciate heritage. But one learns to be selective. If there are people of sufficient means willing to put hands into their own pockets and produce $100.thousand to restore a rotting old shed that has no historical significance, I say good luck to them.

For five years, we tried to find someone to accept it. The developer was committed to moving it wherever we pointed. No-one came forward. No great devotee of Aurora's heritage has considered the project of sufficient merit to invest their own resources.

I don't either.

I think those who made their home in the Petch house over the years would be amazed to know that modest little structure , even now rotting where it sits.would be considered by anyone to be worthy of preservation for all eternity.

I have visited Upper Canada Village and Black Creek Pioneer Village. I think they are charming and delightful and serve a very useful educational function. I 've wandered in pioneer cemeteries, and small churchyards all over Ontario. They serve to remind us of the hardships of life in Ontario a hundred and fifty years ago and how people struggled and endured to survive. They were undersized, malnourished refugees from European slums and famines. A farmer might lose more than one wife in childbirth before his family was raised.They were of my grandparent's and great-grandparent's generation.

I've often stayed in B&Bs in farmhouses in Empire Loyalist country and enjoyed my short stay while recognising the hardship that forces a farm family to take strangers in to their homes to augment fluctuating farm income.

I was asked once by a developer if I thought an old Ontario farmhouse had any significant value. I thought for a minute before answering. If it did, it would undoubtedly be recognised by the old Ontario farmers, who seemed instead to vacate them as soon as they had resources to build a modern bungalow close to the road.

In Aurora, many lovely old homes have been sensitively restored by new owners . I've been glad to support a change in use to permit the buildings a continued function We should all appreciate the efforts made by their owners to maintain their usefulness and charm. . It's entirely possible many of those houses are lovelier today than they were a hundred years ago.
The town also places a value in preserving heritage rather than encouraging redevelopment for multiple unit buildings. It means we do not realize the maximum return for our investment in infrastructure and servicing.

In regards to the Petch house, as an elected representative, I have more concern for family needs of the here and now. I worry about the size of mortgages. If the homes will ever be paid . I worry about young children in day care from early morning until the middle of the evening because both parents need to work to provide the family shelter.

I worry about people living in basement apartments spending anything between a third and half their income for rent for inadequate housing.

And I worry about seniors whose home is their only asset and at the end of a life of hard work and paying taxes and providing everything for their children's generation, being forced to contemplate giving up their homes because property taxes are beyond their means.

$100. thousand being taken out of taxpayers pockets , to restore a rotting old building which has served its purpose many times over is, in my judgement, senseless and irresponsible use of someone else's money.It doesn't mean I have no respect for heritage. It means sensible choices need to be made.