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Saving the Culham House
21 March 2006
[indent]Last night I publicly acknowledged what I had suspected, even feared all along: the Culham House is probably not salvageable, at least by this municipality. At council, Monday, March 20, I withdrew my motion to put money from the town towards saving it.
Over the preceding week, I had talked to staff about the idea, about costs, the method, and about the building construction itself. I also talked to the developer and had obtained some preliminary quotes about costs from another source.
Developers must provide to the town either land for greenspace (five percent of the land area), or cash-in-lieu of that land (five percent of the land's value), according to how the municipality deems the need. In the recent past, the town has generally accepted the cash and used it to restore and maintain existing parks and recreational services.
I generally think this is a bad idea when approving subdivisions, because it allows developers to create sprawling developments without adequate greenspace. We have many developments mushrooming up around our periphery, many without adequate greenspace or parkland as a result of this policy. I oppose approving 'soul-less' developments that lack greenspace.
However, in this case, accepting the cash is more appropriate. The land available would be too small to make a suitable park, and it would be expensive to maintain a small parcel isolated from other parks. It would attract litter, and probably teenagers, requiring constant maintenance and surveillance.
Besides, within five minutes' drive and 10 minutes' walk, there are several existing parks and trails for residents to enjoy. So I supported accepting the cash instead of trying to force a park in an area where it made no sense to have one (staff also recommended the cash option). I wanted to use that cash to move the Culham House, now on the property where the Admiral Collingwood development is going to be built, to another location and save it from demolition.
The Culham house was built in the 1870s, and is one of the two dozen or so classic buildings in the heritage district, so I tried to find a way to save it. Moving the house seemed the only answer. The developer even offered to donate the house and pay up to $20,000 to build a new foundation for it. All we had to do was pay for the moving and any restoration.
I had hoped it could be used as a public space - club house for soccer, art gallery, meeting space, maybe a cafeteria or restaurant on the waterfront. However, reality impeded those dreams.
First, the cost to move the house intact even a short distance is almost $100,000. Because of the building's height, overhead electrical, telephone and cable wires along the route would have to be disconnected, then reconnected once the house had passed, disrupting the town's business along the route for most of a day. Overhanging trees would also have to be trimmed or cut.
The estimate to move the house to the Simcoe Street property where the Tremont and Livery stand, was at least $85,000. To move it to the Spit or to the soccer fields at Fisher Field (not Bygone Days Village as some people thought) was prohibitively expensive.
To compound the problem is the house itself. Brick houses don't move easily or well. Vibration can damage brick walls, and the further you go, the more problems you encounter. The usual practice is to remove the brick facade (leaving the frame), move the house, then re-assemble the brick once the house is on its new foundation.
This would not work with the Culham House. It is a double-brick construction, meaning it has no frame. Remove the brick and there's nothing left to hold it together. The floors and roof would fall in. You'd have to completely rebuild it - at about the cost of building a new house. But the old brick would not survive the dismantling well - it's soft and brittle. A lot - if not all - of the original brick would have to be replaced.
And then there's the condition of the house. It's not been well-maintained, has suffered several fires, and requires a lot of upgrades and renovations to bring it up to modern standards. Plaster-and-lathe walls would have to be replaced, wiring and plumbing too... it suddenly became an expensive proposition. One estimate I received said it would cost $140,000-$200,000 to restore it, plus moving costs.
The cash-in-lieu we would receive from the developer would not cover this expense. I doubted that taxpayers would support putting up a lot of money for the effort, given that we could have re-created it in new form for half the cost or less.
As a consolation, the developer agreed to donate the components of the house to any group which wanted them - such as Habitat for Humanity.
But there may be good news. Yesterday I was approached by another private developer who wants the house and is prepared to move it and restore it at his cost, keeping it within the heritage/downtown district. True, it wouldn't be a public space, as I had anticipated, but it would be accessible to the public, and would retain a building that otherwise will be demolished. He has contacted the owner of the house and talks are proceeding. It's now in his hands.
[/indent]
Over the preceding week, I had talked to staff about the idea, about costs, the method, and about the building construction itself. I also talked to the developer and had obtained some preliminary quotes about costs from another source.
Developers must provide to the town either land for greenspace (five percent of the land area), or cash-in-lieu of that land (five percent of the land's value), according to how the municipality deems the need. In the recent past, the town has generally accepted the cash and used it to restore and maintain existing parks and recreational services.
I generally think this is a bad idea when approving subdivisions, because it allows developers to create sprawling developments without adequate greenspace. We have many developments mushrooming up around our periphery, many without adequate greenspace or parkland as a result of this policy. I oppose approving 'soul-less' developments that lack greenspace.
However, in this case, accepting the cash is more appropriate. The land available would be too small to make a suitable park, and it would be expensive to maintain a small parcel isolated from other parks. It would attract litter, and probably teenagers, requiring constant maintenance and surveillance.
Besides, within five minutes' drive and 10 minutes' walk, there are several existing parks and trails for residents to enjoy. So I supported accepting the cash instead of trying to force a park in an area where it made no sense to have one (staff also recommended the cash option). I wanted to use that cash to move the Culham House, now on the property where the Admiral Collingwood development is going to be built, to another location and save it from demolition.
The Culham house was built in the 1870s, and is one of the two dozen or so classic buildings in the heritage district, so I tried to find a way to save it. Moving the house seemed the only answer. The developer even offered to donate the house and pay up to $20,000 to build a new foundation for it. All we had to do was pay for the moving and any restoration.
I had hoped it could be used as a public space - club house for soccer, art gallery, meeting space, maybe a cafeteria or restaurant on the waterfront. However, reality impeded those dreams.
First, the cost to move the house intact even a short distance is almost $100,000. Because of the building's height, overhead electrical, telephone and cable wires along the route would have to be disconnected, then reconnected once the house had passed, disrupting the town's business along the route for most of a day. Overhanging trees would also have to be trimmed or cut.
The estimate to move the house to the Simcoe Street property where the Tremont and Livery stand, was at least $85,000. To move it to the Spit or to the soccer fields at Fisher Field (not Bygone Days Village as some people thought) was prohibitively expensive.
To compound the problem is the house itself. Brick houses don't move easily or well. Vibration can damage brick walls, and the further you go, the more problems you encounter. The usual practice is to remove the brick facade (leaving the frame), move the house, then re-assemble the brick once the house is on its new foundation.
This would not work with the Culham House. It is a double-brick construction, meaning it has no frame. Remove the brick and there's nothing left to hold it together. The floors and roof would fall in. You'd have to completely rebuild it - at about the cost of building a new house. But the old brick would not survive the dismantling well - it's soft and brittle. A lot - if not all - of the original brick would have to be replaced.
And then there's the condition of the house. It's not been well-maintained, has suffered several fires, and requires a lot of upgrades and renovations to bring it up to modern standards. Plaster-and-lathe walls would have to be replaced, wiring and plumbing too... it suddenly became an expensive proposition. One estimate I received said it would cost $140,000-$200,000 to restore it, plus moving costs.
The cash-in-lieu we would receive from the developer would not cover this expense. I doubted that taxpayers would support putting up a lot of money for the effort, given that we could have re-created it in new form for half the cost or less.
As a consolation, the developer agreed to donate the components of the house to any group which wanted them - such as Habitat for Humanity.
But there may be good news. Yesterday I was approached by another private developer who wants the house and is prepared to move it and restore it at his cost, keeping it within the heritage/downtown district. True, it wouldn't be a public space, as I had anticipated, but it would be accessible to the public, and would retain a building that otherwise will be demolished. He has contacted the owner of the house and talks are proceeding. It's now in his hands.
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