At an October 6th meeting of the general committee of Peterborough City Council, councillors received and acknowledged a notice of General Electric (GE)’s intent to demolish a large portion of their former factory, situated at 107 Park Street North.

The factory is on a list of properties to be examined for potential heritage designation by the Peterborough Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee (PACAC), but following the presentation of a Heritage Impact Assessment report from ERA Architects Inc. which identified only a select few buildings on the Park Street North site as potential heritage sites, council recommended a motion signaling their disinterest in designating the site GE seeks to demolish.

The intial motion before general committee on October 6th asked councillors to recommend three key staff recommendations for approval at next week’s City council meeting: to receive GE’s intent to demolish the portions of their factory pictured above in yellow, to direct staff to seek a complete peer review of ERA Architects’ heritage assessment of the whole site (a measure estimated to cost up to $35,000), and to consult PACAC about the possible designation of the 107 Park Street site upon the completion of the aforementioned peer review.

One concern took centre stage on October 6th, however: the remediation of the site.

“It’s all right to drop these buildings down, and maybe save some of the buildings,” began Ashburnham Ward Councillor Keith Riel, “but we’re going to inherit this problem.”

“It’s built on a swamp,” Riel continued, “and every chemical known to mankind is sitting there, and unless it’s remediated by General Electric, we’re going to have this cesspool and this piece of property in the centre of the city. So that’s the question that should have been asked or should be being asked by General Electric: ‘What is your plan to remediate and clean up this site?’”

The City’s Director of Planning, Development and Urban Design Brad Appleby clarified the City’s position on the remediation for the 107 Park Street North factory.

“In terms of cleanup, that’s really a question that we want to pose to them, but there’s nothing that they’re doing right now that would trigger the city’s ability to ask them to clean up,” he told the horseshoe.

Still, Monaghan Ward Councillor Matt Crowley hoped to leverage the City’s existing authority to get an environmental risk assessment on the site. 

Following Riel’s comments, he put forward an amendment to the motion to require that GE receive confirmation from a qualified person of the completion of an environmental site assessment “and that any necessary remediation, containment, or monitoring plans are in place” before council approved demolitions on-site.

Town Ward Councillor Joy Lachica expressed her support for this amendment but noted that she felt it didn’t go “quite far enough.”

“Should any demolition happen, there would be particulates in the walls, in the floorboards of some of those buildings that would be disrupted. What about the hazardous rate waste removal that would need to occur? We need to care about our public…and we need to put people and community over corporate approvals,” she said.

“We need to put consultation before permissions and permits.”

An hour before the meeting, Lachica said she received a letter from PACAC Chair Stewart Hamilton voicing concerns over the committee’s exclusion from prior conversations about the site. She summarized the contents of the letter as follows.

“It needs to come to PACAC for the people of this city who have contributed to GE as workers, who have lost family members because of the toxic legacy, and because of its historic value, federally and provincially and locally. We need to do our due diligence.”

Fellow Town Ward Councillor Alex Bierk also expressed support of Crowley’s amendment, noting the potential impact of disturbing a site so full of potentially harmful chemicals on neighbouring residents.

“There’s chemicals like arsenic, asbestos, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, uranium, and the list goes on. And so again, I bring you back the fact that we have families and residents that are living on the fence line of this potential demolition,” he told council.

While Otonabee Ward Councillor Lesley Parnell recognized that the site’s historical legacy is “a major issue in our community,” she reminded her fellow councillors of the topic of the motion at hand.

“That’s not what we're dealing with this evening,” said Parnell.

“We’re dealing with a comprehensive report to deal with the heritage of this property. They will be seeking a demolition permit, which is something we’ve been waiting years and years and years to have some remediation, some work done on this property, and it’s a step in the right direction.”

Mayor Jeff Leal also sought clarification on the feasibility of Crowley’s amendment, asking City staff if the City had leverage to demand a remediation of the site from GE.

Commissioner of Legislative Services David Potts reminded councillors that safety obligations surrounding a potential demolition are not within council’s purview, but instead that of the Chief Building Official, who follows the Ontario Building Code.

“In terms of what the Chief Building Official may or may not require, it’s with regard to the building code…the Chief Building Official is expressly not directed by council in that respect,” explained Potts.

After further logistical discussions regarding the feasibility of the amendment, Otonabee Ward Councillor Kevin Duguay successfully called the question, taking it straight to a vote.

With that, Crowley’s amendment was promptly defeated, with only Lachica, Bierk, Leal, Riel and his support.

Parnell then proposed separating out the last two subsections of the initial recommendation—those regarding seeking out a peer review of ERA Architects’ heritage assessment and returning the matter to council with staff recommendations following that peer review—to replace them with language signaling council’s disinterest in designating the sites not identified by the consultant as potential heritage sites.

“We have to stick to our own jurisdiction,” she told the horseshoe.

While she urged her colleagues to accept GE’s notice of demolition, she posited that the proposed peer review was unnecessary—especially given its hefty price tag.

“We already have in front of us a 160 page report, the vast majority of which is a very significant document prepared by professionals with expertise in this area. I don’t see the need…for us to spend $35,000 to peer review something that’s already been so professionally done,” Parnell  said.

Bierk voiced his opposition to the demolition itself, citing the wasted potential to salvage the site.

“All you have to do is go down to the Evergreen Brick Works or Liberty Village in Toronto to see how these sites can be turned into something that are economic drivers for the city…to just try to fast track the demolition of a huge portion of that site isn’t really for a forward-thinking approach, because what I believe we’re doing—I'm not trying to speak for anyone else—is we're making it easier for General Electric to back away from having any liability with that site,” he said.

In search of another solution to the large cost associated with peer reviewing the ERA report, Ashburnham Councillor Gary Baldwin asked City staff about the prospect of making GE pay for the review instead, an idea which Commissioner of Finance and Corporate Support Richard Freymond quickly disillusioned him of.

“We can ask, but I'm not so certain that they'd be obligated to comply,” Freymond told the councillor.

Council then voted on each subsection of the motion separately, first voting to receive the notice of intent to demolish part of the 107 Park Street North site from GE, then defeating the staff-recommended peer review of the ERA report and the subsequent return of that peer review to City staff.

Coun. Parnell then moved two amendments to replace the lost subsections. The first was to recommend that council not consider any of the buildings not recommended in the ERA report for designation and the second, to direct staff to consult with PACAC regarding the possible designations of those recommended.

Still outraged at the outcome of the last vote, Riel spoke of what he felt was disrespect of PACAC by council.

“I'm sad that week after week, we come here, and every time…we're talking about PACAC, you undermine them. If I was on PACAC, I’d resign right today,” he told his fellow councillors.

Still, council voted to go ahead with Parnell’s two amendments, with only Lachica, Baldwin and Riel dissenting to the first and Riel alone to the second.

Bierk left discussions of this motion with a sour expression.

“If you want to talk about a waste of time, I think that this is just a performative motion,” he said earlier of Parnell’s motion to present PACAC with the buildings recommended by ERA Architects.

“I think this is the wrong way to look at this very important site in our city. I think it deserves more from us as leaders around the table, to look at it in an actually meaningful way, especially when we do have resources like PACAC to help us do that.”