The redevelopment of 154-year-old Quaint House in Bond Head into a three-storey, mixed-use building will “destroy” the hamlet, a Bradford West Gwillimbury resident told consultants at a public meeting Thursday evening.
Ian Cooper, a member of the town’s Heritage Committee, was one of about 70 local residents who attended the meeting at Bond Head Community Memorial Hall that turned into a heated discussion between residents, consultants, and councillors.
“I think what this owner is trying to do is monstrous. I think it’ll destroy this village. People here are very upset at having development shoved down their throats on all four corners,” Cooper said.
“It has no relationship to any of the buildings here. I don’t look at that and see heritage. I look at that and see profit.”
Quaint House, which is occupied by Cotto88 Italian Eatery, is on the town’s heritage registry, features a Greek neoclassical entrance, and was once home to the Smith family, who helped the hamlet grow in the 1870s, according to a 2015 heritage assessment.
The owner, Frank Buda, is proposing rezoning the property at 4240 County Rd. 88 to construct a three-storey mixed-use building with 41 residential units on the second and third floors and about 1,700 square metres of commercial space on the ground floor, read a town Notice of Complete Application.
The building, from ground level to roof peak, would stand at 19 ½ metres tall, and there would also be underground and rear parking.
Cooper said he hopes someone will ask the Heritage Committee to consider designating the entirety of Quaint House.
As it now stands, the facade is the only protected section, and the development proposes to remove it brick by brick and build it back up inside the lobby of a new building, said Angela Sciberras, principal consultant at Macaulay Shiomi Howson Ltd. and Buda’s representative, who ran the public meeting.
She said the owners of Cotto88 have said they would take space in a new building.
She stressed the meeting is at the very beginning of the process and there are many more steps to go before a development would be approved.
The projects would also tie into other neighbouring development’s sewer servicing, so how long it takes for the Quaint House project to begin depends entirely on that, she added.
“I don’t think this is happening in a year, two years, or even five years. It’s longer than that,” she said. “We’re here to listen to your comments.”
It could take five to seven years for a site-plan approval, which will involve more studies and detailed plans, Sciberras said.
David Wiggleworth lives next door to Quaint House and told consultants the proposed development “strikes me fully out of the scope to the characteristics of this village.”
“In a different world that’s a beautiful building. In Bond Head, that doesn’t fit,” he said.
The height of the building is one of residents’ main concerns that sparked the town to ask the consultants to hold a meeting in the first place, Sciberras said.
A town-run public meeting was initially slated for June but was cancelled to give more time to get feedback from Thursday’s meeting.
Several residents said they realize more development is inevitable in Bond Head, but they have concerns about the proposal’s size, parking and traffic, closeness to the County Road 88 roadside (three metres), heritage design, and privacy for neighbouring homes.
“Like Bradford and Newmarket and Aurora, Bond Head will eventually have its own commercial core. You can’t have a community of 5,000 without a commercial core. If you do, it’s a dead community,” said local resident Dr. David Chambers.
However, he added, the best way to revitalize the hamlet is by involving different people and leveraging the area’s existing assets.
“We have our collection of 19th-century heritage buildings. People will come to see heritage buildings. They will not come to Bond Head to see that building. They can see that building anywhere in Ontario or the (United) States,” he said.
“We have something special here in Bond Head. This is a joke. This business of putting a few bricks from an old house into a new building is just like making a mockery of our heritage.”
Sciberras and Ian Robertson, architectural technologist for the project, answered questions at the meeting, pointing several times to what is allowed under Quaint House’s zoning.
For example, under C5 zoning, a development could actually be up to 3,000 square metres larger than what is proposed, Sciberras said.
As well, the original proposal was 12 to 15 metres from the lot line, instead of its current three metres, with parking in front, but the Town of BWG requested the building be brought closer to the roadside with parking behind, Robertson said.
As it is now, the development also has a single entrance onto County Road 88, but originally it had two — one of which the town nixed, he added.
The development does not meet the minimum requirements for parking spaces, but the owner is moving forward with a parking and traffic study requested by the town to examine things like location, walkability and available transit, Sciberras said.
The results will outline what parking- and traffic-related changes must be made to the design, and that could involve shrinking the building size, Robertson said.
The development process will also continue regardless of plans for a Bond Head Heritage Conservation District, which is currently in the works.
“That process is still going. If the town decides this is on the study area, then it’s on the study area,” Sciberras said.
Buda did not attend the public meeting Thursday, which Sciberras explained to residents was because she suggested he not go to avoid heated disagreements so the meeting would run smoothly.
His lack of appearance, however, was pointed out by several upset residents, including Beeton’s Karen Johanssen, who called it “disrespectful.”
“It’s so rude of him not to show up when all these people showed up to talk about (the proposal),” she said, which sparked clapping from the crowd.
As according to bylaw, only residents within 120 metres of Quaint House received notice about the meeting, although some locals handed out information throughout the hamlet and argued the notice should have spanned a wider area.
Coun. Ron Orr, who represents the area, started to apologize at the meeting before being cut off by Deputy Mayor James Leduc.
“There’s no need to apologize. I’ve heard some words tonight that are a little bit rude to the town and to these people,” Leduc said. “This is the first time I’ve visually seen this (proposal). I’m not going to go and tell you what to do on your property (and Buda has the right to do what he wants on his).”
Leduc’s comments caused a mild uproar in the room, with many residents yelling out their reactions at the same time.
“You need to sit down and talk about what will work and is best for everyone,” said Bond Head resident David Morton.
Sciberras said she would look into planning a second public meeting with Buda present.
“I’ve been mayor for four and a half years, and I’ve never seen as many people out to a meeting,” Mayor Rob Keffer told the crowd.
“There’s all sorts of options (for Quaint House),” Sciberras added, noting the building could be preserved or moved. “I can’t stress enough this is the beginning of the process.”
