03-21-2015, 11:05 PM
(03-20-2015, 03:22 PM)panamaniac Wrote: In the case of Kitchener, which even its biggest boosters would have to admit is never going to win any beauty contests, I have sympathy for the preservation of structures that reflect the City over its history (and no, not in every case). We could, of course, just tear everything down and build new structures, but what would that mean for the city's "texture" (not sure if that's the right word)? If I am correct that this building is not on the Heritage Register, then better minds than mine have decided that it doesn't merit being there. That doesn't prohibit me from feeling that its loss, if that were to occur, would be unfortunate.
I don't follow your logic here. Are you saying that because the city is ugly we need to preserve the ugly buildings? isn't that going against what we want the city to become??
Moreover I don't agree with your overall negative sentiment on the city. When we were assembling the list of top ten buildings in the region, there were well over 30 different structures all of which were worthy of note to which we could easily add the top twenty houses in the region for a total of 50. Why don't focus our preservation efforts on those and then work with developers to create even more structures like that, be it by renovating old buildings (Seagram lofts, Barrel Warehouse, Tannery, Breihaupt, Kaufman lofts, etc) or by building new noteworthy structures (CCGG, Pharmacy, CIGI, Perimeter, Kitchener city hall, etc).
What do we gain by unnecessarily antagonizing developers to protect ugly structures? Again the heritage committee needs to re-examine it's "protect every odd wart in the city" approach, and focus on things that truly deserve protection.