Property owners quarrel with Ottawa’s heritage designation plans for Rideau Street

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Heritage officials have given property owners notice that the City of Ottawa wants to  preserve the “historic main street feel” of a stretch of Rideau Street by designating some buildings as heritage.

But one building owner says the city has much more significant issues than protecting buildings when there is social disorder on the street itself.

Schuyleur Seccaspina said he learned about a month ago that the city planned to designate two of the buildings he owns: 152 and 158 Rideau.

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“I know the city really cherishes the unique aspects of Rideau Street, but Rideau Street is nowhere near what it was when I was a kid,” Seccaspina told the members of the city’s built heritage committee on Tuesday.

“There are more pressing issues to be dealt with down here,” said Seccaspina, whose family has owned the buildings that back onto Besserer Street since the 1980s.

“Instead of working so hard to maintain the heritage aspects of the buildings, we should be looking at the social disorder on the streets. You know, as a kid, my parents would let us, eight or nine years old, walk on the streets by ourselves. That cannot be today,” he said.

Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster, a member of the built heritage committee, questioned how heritage designation could be conflated with social disorder. There have been some “infamous” cases where owners have allowed heritage properties to fall into disrepair, she said.

“It’s unacceptable,” Troster said, “and, frankly, a lot of social disorder is attracted to areas that are derelict.”

Seccaspina’s buildings are among a cluster of commercial buildings recommended for heritage designation, including 149, 152, 156-158, 198 and 217 Rideau St. and 73 Rideau St., the former home of  home of A.J. Freiman’s landmark Beaux Arts department store.

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Planners have identified the facades of the buildings as worth preserving, said Lesley Collins, Ottawa’s program manager for heritage planning.

“They contribute to the historic main street character of Rideau Street. The original kind of main street where everybody went to do their shopping, and to tailor shops and sporting goods stores and department stores,” she said. “That doesn’t mean that the elements that make these places important can’t be incorporated into new development.”

Heritage Ottawa, a volunteer group that champions protecting heritage buildings and landscapes, urged the committee to designate the properties as significant examples of the surviving buildings on what was once Ottawa’s main commercial street.

The street has become dominated by new high-rise residential buildings, said David Flemming, chair of Heritage Ottawa’s advocacy committee. Designation will allow Ottawa to do what dozens of other communities have done to preserve their main streets, he said.

Seccaspina told the committee he had one deal with a developer that fell through 10 years ago. Grants offered by the city to help preserve the facades of heritage buildings won’t even pay the cost of scaffolding, he said.

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But Collins said there was still a lot of development opportunity for the Rideau Street buildings, pending zoning and other other planning approvals. The city feels very strongly that heritage planners should work with property owners towards creative solutions that function for the owners, but still meet the city’s conservation goals, she said.

Meanwhile, retailer HBC has filed an objection to a proposal to designate the facade of 73 Rideau St. The Hudson’s Bay Company, now known as HBC, acquired the building in 1972. Heritage planners say 73 Rideau and its intact streetscape “represents Rideau Street’s history and peak as a commercial main street in Ottawa.”

In a letter to the city, Franco Perugini, senior vice-president of real estate at HBC, noted that heritage designation would make the building less marketable if HBC wanted to sell or redevelop it. Under the heritage proposal, the large display windows on the building’s first storey would be preserved. That could harm future tenanting opportunities, making it more difficult to lease the property, he said.

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“We are also of the opinion that the nature of retail along Rideau Street, formerly Ottawa’s ‘high street,’ is now very much an arterial road with intensive transit services, and not the same character street as when the original buildings were constructed,” Perugini said.

Perugini also noted that the Province of Manitoba established a $25-million building fund to preserve heritage elements of HBC’s former building in downtown Winnipeg.

“We suggest that the City of Ottawa’s matching grant be increased to an amount substantially higher than the currently proposed $25,000,” he said.

The large display windows are one of the most significant attributes of 73 Rideau St., Flemming said. Window displays and window shopping were a link with potential shoppers on the streets. Freiman’s window display included a seasonal “Santa Claus train” promotion featured in the window from 1956 to 1972.

If council passes a motion in favour of recommending designating the Rideau Street properties as heritage on June 25, the city will publish a notice of intent to designate them as heritage, Collins said. Property owners will have 30 says from the date of publication to object.

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The city will also be reconsidering the amounts it offers as a heritage grant for owners who are restoring buildings that have been designated as heritage, based on the size of the building as it stands — that’s $10,000 for a small building and $25,000 for a building at the higher end — Collins said.

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