During the first of three meetings of Peterborough City Council on November 3rd, council briefly revisited the heritage designation of 107 Park Street North, despite its previously ratified disinterest in designating more of the former General Electric (GE) Peterborough site. 

A special general committee meeting on Monday was devoted to one item: council’s further consideration of 107 Park. This followed last week’s recommendation from the Peterborough Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee (PACAC) that an additional building be added to the original eight buildings slated for heritage designation. 

In September, GE Vernova sent letters to residents and notified the City of Peterborough of its intent to demolish 25 of the 33 buildings on its 50-acre campus on Park Street North. Residents raised concerns about the notice of demolition to council in an October meeting regarding the former GE Peterborough plant’s heritage designation, as the site’s groundwater and soil are still monitored for industrial chemical contamination after nearly 130 years of manufacturing activity. 

The initial motion from council, a subsection pulled from the original recommendation from city staff, ordered City staff to consult PACAC about the possible designation of the sites recommended in the heritage assessment. After this consultation came a report from the committee expressing their wishes to preserve additional heritage features they identified, namely another building (numbered 13 in a site assessment) and a number of building façades along Albert Street (Buildings 8, 34, 16A, 16 and 22 in the same site assessment.)

“Architecturally, the complex demonstrates the evolution of industrial design from the Late Victorian and Edwardian periods to postwar modernism. Early brick buildings … exhibit fine craftsmanship, decorative brickwork, and large fenestration typical of early factory architecture, while later additions illustrate functional modern industrial construction,” reads the PACAC report. 

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The report also identifies the GE site as a “cultural heritage landscape,” which is defined by the Province of Ontario as “a …geographical area that may have been modified by human activity and is identified as having cultural heritage value or interest by a community.” 

“The former large GE manufacturing complex is an integral aspect of the neighbourhood,” the PACAC report continues. “The plant’s location, form, and enduring presence have shaped the surrounding residential and transportation patterns and remain integral to understanding Peterborough’s industrial development.”

In a meeting which lasted only ten minutes, the question of PACAC’s report was put with no discussion, and the report was recommended to be received for information, as council decided against PACAC’s recommendation to pursue further actions on the heritage aspect of the GE site, which upholds its resolution of disinterest on October 14, 2025. 

The subsection regarding the additions to the GE designations—the facades and the power plant—needed a ⅔ majority vote, as it would require a recommendation to reconsider an already ratified decision made by council. 

Council unanimously voted to recommend the property for Cultural Heritage Landscape designation and recommended 7-3 that the City serve a notice of intention to designate the original eight buildings identified in GE’s heritage assessment.

Only four councillors voted in favour of the further designations PACAC recommended: councillors Matt Crowley, Alex Bierk, Joy Lachica, and Keith Riel.

Town Ward Councillor Joy Lachica felt that PACAC’s recommendation wasn’t contrary to what was on the table during the meeting, and cited concerns from those in the residential area of the GE site, namely residents on its southern side on Albert Street facing the centre block of the campus.

“[Those neighbours] are going to have a kerplunk of all those buildings going down, and there's been no consideration about the possibility that that will be a wasteland to look at,” Lachica told reporters. 

“We're framing [it as] a cultural heritage area to show some respect for everything that was and wasn't, and to give the people of Albert Street just something visual, because it would be very it's like missing teeth and a wasteland.”

Lachica observed the PACAC meeting prior to Monday’s special general committee meeting, where she said the committee spent “hours” to produce this report.  

Her wardmate Alex Bierk felt that the work of PACAC should’ve been more thoroughly discussed at the special meeting. 

“If I was the chair, I would have allowed the PACAC recommendation to come through out of respect to the work that PACAC does,” Bierk told reporters.

“PACAC proposed something that was different from what council had directed them to do. PACAC didn't look at the entire lot of buildings, but they did have some stuff to say about certain facades,” Bierk said. “And I think that this is a big enough issue that's important to a lot of people that we should have considered it.”

“All of us came from our lives and our work to come here at two o'clock [in the afternoon], and we don't even get a chance to give our opinion on the report that we've all been studying and investigating and talking to the community about. To me, that's the biggest issue.”

As for Northcrest Ward Councillor Dave Haacke, who put the question and effectively ended all conversation around the additional designations, he felt that the “essence” of the GE conversation was “the same.” 

“Instead of staying for an hour and a half and discussing it again, I think I knew where I was standing with it,” Haacke told reporters.

“The discussion going forward is very clear. People want to know that this is being done in a proper manner,” Haacke said. 

“Where the Ministry of Labour and the [Ministry of Environment] gets involved, they’re involved from the get-go,” he continued, “and they’re not shy about telling you how this is going to happen.”

“I think I can safely say all of council wants it done properly: same as the Ministry does, same as GE does, so I’m comfortable to go forward.”

Council will ratify Monday’s special committee recommendations on the following Tuesday at its own meeting of city council, where it is the sole agenda item.