Sentiment in its place

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Fish,Fowl or Good Red Herring":

I read Chris’s blog entry talking about the heritage rating on the Browning House. 92.5 out of 100? Maybe there was a mistake with the decimal placing. I would have thought 9.25 would have been generous.
Posted by Anonymous to Our Town and Its Business at 12 June 2014 09:55 

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I always thought that house was a blight on the landscape. Forty years ago the planner told me 
the inside was worse .

I was not delighted with the proposal to adapt  the building to modern use. 

The owners undertook the project. A local architect was hired  and set about designing the new structure and gutting the old. 

A team wearing masks and protective clothing cleaned out the premises. I believe the owners were part of that. 

Foundations were  discovered to be inadequte. A permit was obtained from the town to secure the structure.

The town steered  the owners to  access  from a  right-of-way at the rear. Yonge Street was the 
address and the frontage. 

Neighbours who shared the righof-way objected.  Their  concerns were valid and took precedence. 

However much may have been invested  at that point was wasted.

The owners were not at fault.  All the planning was for nought.

Town man-hours  invested  in the project were equally unproductive.

It may be  more expense is incurred in work that comes to nought than work that obtains results.

Everybody pays the price.

The plan went off the rails. 

Thousands of dollars,private and public,, wasted in the process.

It's  not a solitary event.

Waste  of resources  must number in the millions in  Aurora  alone.

I appreciate the orderliness and  charm of old Aurora. People of vision and imagination have invested  private resources to that end.

Families opting for old versus new, with personal resources  have restored old neighbourhoods to new gentility.

My applause goes to the private sector.

Towns seldom build anything. Perhaps not a bad thing. e.g. Works yard and garage $26.9 million and counting.

I do not share the view every  relic of the past needs to be  preserved.  Or  massive infusion of public funds should be used to that end.

I don;t believe bureaucracy is better placed to manage preservation.

Stories are legion to prove otherwise.

The fishing/ sailing ship, BlueNose  languishing in Lunenburg Harbour is the latest

Each time I go to Nova Scotia, I visit Lunenburg to catch a glimpse of it.

But the latest story of millions spent  and no end in sight,  makes me shiver.

Chris's viewpoint is his . I offer no  challenge .

But sentiment  does not buy the baby a new bonnet