By Staff
February 11th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
Heritage took a hit in Burlington – the house on the Taylor farm on Appleby Line north of Harvester had an encounter with a bulldozer in the dark of night.
No permit to demolish, no notice. The house that sat on the 18 acre property was there one day and gone the next.
Kathleen White, Chair of the Burlington Heritage Advisory committee said they had “been working proactively with several of the Taylor siblings as best we could.
“Heritage Burlington has never advocated for this course of action by property owners and we have always tried to support and work with Burlington residents to conserve and promote any heritage properties.
“There are several options available to Burlington residents and we will always advocate for an environment of collaborative stewardship in the hopes of maintaining Burlington properties that have cultural heritage value.
“We hope that the City will take the necessary steps to ensure this type of behaviour is not considered by others.
“In the end, next steps are in the hands of the City’s Building Department.”
Further up Appleby Line, the Trinity Baptist Church that was heavily damaged by fire last August been too severely damaged in the fire for the building to be saved.
1975 -• Early in the year an offer was made, and accepted, to purchase an old United Church Building on Appleby Line. The building fund had $23000 at that point and, when an additional $8000 came in from the small congregation during a special offering drive in July, the asking price of $30000 was met. Extensive renovations took place within the building and a complete new section was added to provide washrooms and nursery facilities at a cost of $58000.
1976 -• February 28th: After the renovations were completed, a service of praise and dedication was called for. Friends from other Sovereign Grace churches were in attendance and all were blessed as brother Leigh Powell preached a message of thanksgiving.
1986 -• A further addition was made to the building as “the wing” was built, giving us an excellent and much needed facility for mid-week activities, Sunday School classes and fellowship hours.
1995 -• The church purchased two acres of land on Appleby Line across from 2 Side Road West. This acquisition provided much needed extra parking space and secured for the congregation some expansion room for the future, to which we looked with faith and anticipation.
2012 -• Trinity celebrated its 40th anniversary.
Trinity Baptist Church currently meets at the Crossroads Centre on the North Service Road.
It appears to be easier to confiscate it from the owners without compensation. Councilor Meed Ward is presently working on a idea of compensating owners of Historical properties with extra densities. In return for protecting their properties. No cost to the City sounds like a win win.
Maybe if the city was so interested in it’s heritage status they should have bought it for a fair value market price, and then maintained it in the way they desired. Instead of forcing that role on others.