A commentary by a heritage consultant and past chair of Victoria’s Heritage Advisory Panel
Re: “139-room hotel might replace two Victoria heritage buildings,” Nov. 25.
What part of a Heritage Conservation Area (all of Old Town) do Chard Development Ltd. and UVic Properties not understand?
The whole point of a Heritage Conservation Area is to protect the remaining heritage buildings, under strict guidelines, which means any necessary new construction should be “visually and physically subordinate” to the existing building stock.
Chard Development’s proposal for a hotel (first it was for student housing) on Broad Street overwhelms the Duck Block — built in 1892 for $18,000 and one of the last, and largest, intact heritage buildings left in Old Town, still with original interior features, including a staircase.
The proposal will also demolish the Canada Hotel on the corner of Johnson Street and Broad Street. Chard’s proposal to gut the Duck Block — and only keep a stone rear wall of the Canada Hotel, in an alleyway, to be illuminated by distinctly non-heritage uplighting — contributes nothing to the retention of the small-scale, heritage nature of Old Town.
The facade of the Duck Block — the tallest building on that block of Broad Street — will be overwhelmed by two matching bookends of new construction, each taller than the current Duck Block, and adding construction onto the roof of the Duck Block itself.
City guidelines for Old Town specify that one of the aims of any new construction is to retain the current varied heights in the neighbourhood as a visual memory of the way Old Town developed with buildings of all sizes. Chard’s proposal reduces the Duck Block’s visual importance and pushes the height limits of Old Town.
And the iconic shopfronts of the existing Duck Block will be replaced by new vertical glazing. So the city will be left with only two upper storeys of preserved brick. This is heritage conservation?
The Canada Hotel on the corner is even earlier — dating from the 1870s, and designed by pioneer architect Thomas Trounce. It is one of only about seven of his buildings left in the entire city.
Yes, it has been renovated, but the city archives has a photograph of what those shopfronts looked like, with charming bay windows above. It is to be entirely demolished except for that one stone wall at the back. Restoration should be contemplated.
City council has to think long and hard about the future of its successful, 35-year-old heritage program if it decides to go down this route. The Old Town Heritage Conservation Area was established to preserve our heritage, not to enable new construction to overwhelm it.
