Mansion’s fate hangs in balance

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This article was published 09/09/2019 (2376 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The tug of war over efforts to save or demolish a stately Wellington Crescent mansion returns to city hall this week.

The owners of the residence at 514 Wellington Cres., as well as two other residents in the neighbourhood, will appear before the property and development committee. They plan to appeal the decision of the director of planning, property and development to nominate Crescentwood as a heritage conservation district.

That nomination prevented the demolition of the house at the last possible moment in June and has rallied neighbours in the handsome, old neighbourhood to preserve that building and others. It has also infuriated the owner of the house, who wanted to build a six-condo development and now has plans to subdivide the property and build three single-family dwellings.

It is owned by a numbered company with Winnipeg businessman, Jeff Thompson, serving as its president.

Although nomination of a neighbourhood as a heritage conservation district is just the first step of what could be a lengthy process, it immediately prohibits demolition in the neighbourhood for the duration of the decision-making process regarding designation.

No demolition permits will be issued, and all existing demolition permits are suspended.

The owners of 514 Wellington Cres. had obtained a demolition permit and had decommissioned the house, cutting off power, gas and water services. But that work was halted at the last moment in early June during a tense standoff between demolition crews and area residents opposed to the house’s destruction.

Since then, neighbours have rounded up support for preservation of the house. They have organized a petition with more than 5,000 signatures and have occasionally picketed in front of the 110-year-old, 8,000-square-foot house that was once the home of Wilfred Sifton, general manager of the Winnipeg Free Press, and Douglas Everett, founder of Domo Gas and a former senator.

Jamie Kagan, the lawyer representing the current owner of the house, said the appeal of the nomination to designate the neighborhood a heritage district — from Academy Road to Grosvenor Avenue and from Stafford Street to Wellington Crescent — is being done for a variety of reasons.

“To start with, before we purchased the property, we asked the city if it was a heritage site or if it was planning to be designated as a heritage site and they said, ‘no,’” Kagan said.

“Most times in a business relationship, you have to, at least, take a consistent position.”

Christine Skene, a resident in the neighbourhood and spokeswoman for a 12-person committee that has been active in obtaining special status for the neighbourhood, said there have been a number of written submissions prepared in support of the nomination and there are plans to have a large representation at the meeting on Thursday.

“This is not just about 514 Wellington,” she said. “(The effort to get the neighborhood designated as heritage conservation district) has been going on for some time.”

Skene said the Crescentwood group has been following the years-long process that Armstrong Point went through that culminated in its recent heritage designation.

“We have been bird-dogging along, attending their hearings,” she said. “Even back before Armstrong Point, we were told we were one of three areas being considered. This did not come out of the blue.”

Kagan believes that his client has been hard done by and that maybe city hall officials have been swayed by influential residents in the neighbourhood.

“This is not a groundswell of the 900 homes to be affected,” Kagan said. “It is a group of people who don’t want something in their neighborhood. You have maybe 16 people who believe that somehow, someway, because rich people lived in a building, it is historic. It is not.”

The Winnipeg Public Service is recommending to the committee that the appeal be denied. If that happens, the Urban Planning and Design Division will consult with stakeholders about boundaries, heritage values and other relevant topics with the goal of producing a heritage conservation district study for review in 2020.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca