Owner’s bid to use stucco on downtown building denied; City investigating heritage loan program

The owner’s bid to use stucco to replace the back façade of 23 Downie St. was denied by Stratford city council this council, as the building is in a heritage conservation district. From this decision, city staff have been directed to investigate a new loan program to help protect downtown heritage and mitigate owners’ costs.

CONNOR LUCZKA, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

At last Monday’s Stratford city council meeting, Craig Foster, owner of 23 Downie St., petitioned council to let him repair his building with a “logical fix.”

“We’re asking to put stucco on it, which is a 100-year-old exterior finish,” Foster said the evening of Jan. 26. “I really believe that we are in our right to fix the building the way it should be fixed.”

The building, located downtown in the city’s heritage conservation district, is currently where Resonance Fashion is located. After Foster noticed paint peeling on the back wall facing the Albert Lot car park, he applied for a heritage alteration permit last spring. He argued that the existing brick of the building was beyond repair and needed replacing, pointing to other buildings in the downtown core.

Staff and the heritage committee, however, were of the opinion that the brick façade was not beyond repair and should be repaired by removing the paint and repointing the brick. The owner would be permitted to repaint the brick, according to the city’s heritage standards, but the preference would be for the original brick to remain, according to Adam Betteridge, director of building and planning.

Being a heritage building in the conservation district, the building is subject to more stringent standards than other buildings. For the type of building the subject property is, “the original masonry must be retained wherever possible. If repair and/or reconstruction is necessary, the new brick or stonework shall match the appearance of the original as closely as possible, in colour, shape and/or pattern,” according to the heritage conservation district’s standards.

“I don't understand how repairing the brick and then painting the brick can be a logical way of approaching the problem,” Foster explained. “And I do not also understand how a finished stucco wall, that is also a solid colour once it's painted, can be of any less historical (value) or aesthetically pleasing. … It just seems to me to be a very logical fix to the solution. It's on the back of the building, facing the parking lot. There's several buildings already that façades are on the parking lot that have stucco on them. So it's not like it would be a brand-new thing.”

In a unanimous decision, council denied Foster’s permit. Many councillors around the horseshoe pointed to the lack of a professional opinion supporting Foster’s claim that the brick was beyond repair – something they encouraged Foster to investigate. There are no city fees for applying for a permit and nothing restricting Foster from submitting another application for the same project.

Although Coun. Larry McCabe voted to deny Foster’s permit, he was sympathetic as a downtown property owner himself.

“I have also (owned) a building which was in a similar state with bricks that were popping off and it became a hazard and needed to be addressed,” McCabe said. “The longer-term solution was to repoint the brick … and have it restored to the condition it was in years ago. And I think that provided a good solution, and ultimately a long-term solution for the building, which maintains the heritage of Stratford and our heritage conservation area, which I think is extremely important.”

To that end, McCabe put forward a motion to have staff investigate “a levy-neutral property-secured heritage façade and masonry loan program under the Community Improvement Plan, targeted to the heritage conservation district, funding up to 50 per cent of eligible costs, capitalized from the unallocated funds of the proceeds of the city-owned Vivian Line land sale, structured with a Bank of Canada linked interest rate.”

The motion was passed unanimously, with only Couns. Mark Hunter and Taylor Briscoe absent from the vote.