General Urban Waterloo Updates and Rumours

[MidTowner]

Strawman.

Not when you have commenters disparaging the committee tasked with preserving built heritage when they speak out in favour of preserving built heritage.

My guesstimate is that there are somewhere between 50-100 buildings in the region (some old, some modern) worthy of protection on an aesthetic basis alone. To that we need to add historical value items (Schneider house, Woodside) as well as a choice few last representatives of an important period in our past (e.g. a Mennonite hand raised barn, early XX century industrial buildings like the Tannery, etc.)

Lastly as an environmentalist I'm in favour of reuse whenever sensible, but not in the name of some made up heritage connection.

I really don't think there should be some sort of a quota. "Aesthetic basis alone" also might not be sufficient reason for forcing an owner to preserve something- in fact, it shouldn't be, given that aesthetics is by definition a matter of judgment, and subjective. My point really is about the "choice few last representatives." Well, they're the last because none of the other representatives were protected, and people felt they were mediocre and should be razed. It doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that this example should be demolished, because it's not the last, but obviously when we get to the last one we'll protect that.