City of North Vancouver approves tear down of municipally owned heritage house

The City of North Vancouver council has voted to go ahead with the demolition of a city-owned heritage house to make way for the North Shore Neighbourhood House housing development project.

There was plenty of hand-wringing, but council voted Monday night to deconstruct the 1905 Allen Residence at 204 East First Street, after nobody came forward with an offer to move the house to another site.

Heritage advocate Jennifer Clay, president of the North Shore Heritage Preservation Society, chastised council for setting a bad example, saying the city could have moved the house to another nearby city-owned lot.

“How can the City of North Vancouver expect private heritage register homeowners to maintain and retain their homes if the City of North Vancouver is not willing to set a good example?” she asked. “Once these 100-plus-year-old homes are demolished, they are gone forever.”

Clay added she’s not surprised there were no takers for the home, given the very compressed deadlines to move the home set by the city.

“Relocating a home is complex and requires a timeline of approximately six months to manage the logistics,” she said.

The city rejected the option of moving the home itself, with a staff report citing “the lack of a long-term viable use for the structure, as well as significant costs associated with an adaptive retrofit for public use.”

The Allen Residence was originally owned by Patrick Allen, an Irish-born blacksmith, and has stood in the same spot for the last 120 years. It’s listed on the “B list” of heritage properties in the municipality.

Claire Heath, a city resident, has a personal connection to the heritage home. Patrick Allen was her grandfather's uncle.

“I remember my mother talking about an uncle who was blacksmith who lived in North Vancouver and was a property owner," she said.

But the house, now owned by the municipality, is sitting on land where the city plans to build 180 units of non-profit rental housing and a new North Shore Neighbourhood House.

Last month, the city put out a call for a civic-minded buyer to come forward with a plan to move the house to a new location. But nobody did.

Heath said she wasn't in a position to make an offer herself, but was disappointed regardless.

"I was really sad and shocked to know nobody was interested," she said, adding she wrote to mayor and council urging them to reconsider their decision. "It's one of the oldest homes in North Vancouver," she said.

During council discussion Monday night, several councillors voiced disappointment that the heritage house couldn’t be saved.

According to staff, the estimated cost to move the home was over $100,000, depending on its final location.

Staff added that the original plan for the North Shore Neighbourhood development would not have required the home to be moved so soon. But after a push to accelerate the process by several years to take advantage of grant funding, the city ran out of time.

Coun. Shervin Shahriari said the city should have done a better job at preserving its own history.

“The heritage register represents an ongoing civic commitment to monitor and conserve the city’s historic resources. And when it comes to the Allen Residence … I believe we could have done better in this case,” he said.

Coun. Tony Valente voiced similar thoughts saying “I’m not really happy” with the decision.

Valente said he’d hoped the house could be moved.

“I don’t really see us putting in enough effort to develop a plan for if [heritage homes] are to be preserved, how that happens and where that happens,” he said.

Heath said she agrees. “I think it’s really regrettable and I feel very disappointed council doesn’t have a clear plan in terms of dealing with these types of situations," she said. "What about the future?"

Mayor Linda Buchanan said she’s a heritage supporter, and lives in a heritage home herself, but added sometimes it’s not possible to save a building.

Buchanan said she’d spoken with Glyn Lewis of Renewal Home Development, a company that specializes in moving heritage homes – like the yellow schoolhouse recently moved from Kitsilano to Squamish Nation land. But she got the same answer back, said Buchanan – the costs to move the home are too high for that to make sense.

Buchanan said sometimes history must be preserved through the stories surrounding a property rather than actual bricks and mortar.

“But I appreciate people’s angst around it,” she said.

Council voted to go ahead with the deconstruction, with only Shahriari opposed.

Editor's note: This story has been amended since first posting to add comments by Claire Heath.