Committee pitch to be involved

Posted Jan 5, 2012 By Ray Yurkowski

EMC News - Brighton - At a special Heritage Advisory Committee meeting on Monday afternoon, chairperson Wray Koepke put the finishing touches to a municipal council resolution ratified in February 2007.

Included in the agenda was a municipal register evaluation for 24 Elizabeth Street, Brighton Public School.

"I did see a degree of some urgency to deal with an issue in regard to the school," Koepke told the committee. "Before you, is a straightforward property evaluation, written along the lines of previous committee submissions to council for listing and designation. We should bear in mind a report of this nature on the public school has never been examined by council nor placed on the municipality's listing record."

The intent of the submission, to be delivered as part of the agenda package for the January 9 municipal council meeting, is to give council some background information for deliberations on whether to serve notice of intent to designate the building as a property of heritage interest or what might be salvaged from the school in the event of demolition.

In the report, the building is described as a historic style of architecture typical of the early 20th century, a town landmark and a well-preserved example of an Italian Renaissance revival building of the era.

During the discussion, many around the table recalled the council resolution to add the school to the municipal register.

But because there was no background information included with the register listing, Koepke wanted to set the record straight. Typically, when a property is added to the list, the backgrounder is added to the file and, in this case, it wasn't. And now, time is ticking as school board officials have revealed demolition is imminent.

"The chair was just trying to make this into a format consistent with what we've done with every other property we've added to the register," explained Planning Director Ken Hurford at the meeting.

When talk turned to what might be salvaged and used as a monument to commemorate the old school, committee member Parise Herbert wondered about the possibility of using the entire structure around the front door - an arcaded and colonnaded front entry with acanthus leaf motifs at the top of the columns.

"It's not in our mandate to recommend the school be designated nor to suggest what can be saved," Koepke reminded the committee. "All we can do is ask council to get back to us and say we are ready to do so."

A motion was passed asking council to add the evaluation to the school listing on the municipal register of properties of cultural heritage value or interest.

"Last summer, we asked council to do due diligence and that was a polite way of saying we want to be involved," said Koepke after the meeting. "But they've never come back to us. Maybe they didn't want us meddling in it, I don't know."