Comment
Judicious
Picton Town Hall is a beautiful old building. Or, at least the second floor is. I have never ventured into the first floor, into, what was until recently, the Picton Fire Hall. The exterior, too, has architectural value worth preserving. And protecting.
The building has been thrust into the spotlight in recent months as the municipality considers its future. It had banked on selling the property to help finance the new Picton firehall in the industrial park. But parting with the building is proving difficult. A large and vocal group of residents gathered at Shire Hall last week to tell council to back away from the old town hall and to take any consideration of the sale of the building off the table.
Some argued that the best way to preserve the heritage and cultural value of the building was for it to remain in the County’s hands. Others described the impact of losing an inexpensive meeting space in central Picton on their volunteer organizations. Still others asked for time to explore opportunities as a public space, including a permanent farmers’ market. One speaker aroused spontaneous applause arguing that holding onto this property would help to push back against the forces of gentrification—forces she said were ushering low income folks out of this community.
“Why are we selling a public place?” she asked.
It’s a fair question. Selling assets to pay bills is a dead end. Soon the proceeds of the sale are gone and the expenses continue to pile up.
Yes, the proceeds from selling the old town hall, estimated to be about $800,000, were earmarked for the new firehall, but that decision didn’t turn on this sale. Nor did it enter into the decision to buy a new $1.2 million ladder truck.
Council, though sympathetic to the arguments, chose to stick to its plan; that is, to explore a variety of potential alternatives for the property, including partnerships and outright sale. It was the right decision, despite its unpopularity in the gallery on Tuesday night last week.
By leaving all options on the table, however, they have most certainly made their ultimate decision much harder.
Council will need to do a better job of explaining why the option of selling the building must remain on the table, and why the prospect of a sale need not forgo the protection of its heritage and cultural value—or its utility as a community space.
Some context.
The County of Prince Edward owns 82 buildings. Collectively they are carried on the County’s books at a value of about $87 million. Each year we spend about $2.5 million to improve them. Maintaining these structures— heating, lighting, cleaning, insurance and such—isn’t presented as a separate line item the County’s budget, but it is likely a big and growing number.
Most of the County’s buildings are old. Like all older buildings they are decaying even as the pace of maintenance and repair needed is picking up. Last month, for example, council approved $250,000 for a new heating and cooling system for Shire Hall. That’s one HVAC system for a single building. It’s a lot of money for a rural government funded by 12,000 property taxpayers. For this reason, council and municipality must be judicious about which buildings it retains, and which ones it assigns to private owners.
The truth is the County can’t afford 82 decaying buildings. Folks talk about the lack of affordability of living in the County. But part of this widening gap is property tax bills that have increased three-fold over the past two decades. And surely driving some of this increase is the burden of the County’s inventory of buildings.
Nor does selling municipal properties necessarily cede protection of the heritage value of these structures. We are stuck in the notion that the only way to protect these assets is through public ownership. Yet, around the world, communities preserve their unique— and economically valuable—architectural character not by owning everything, but by putting strict rules in place on private property holders dictating what they can and can’t do with their structures. And then enforcing the rules.
Here is how it would work. Prior to a sale, the municipality would apply strict covenants and other regulatory tools to ensure, for example, the exterior is never altered, that windows and other features are retained. The sale, and any future sales, would be contingent on this agreement.
The County need not own a building in order to preserve its unique character. It must only choose to impose such restrictions, with sufficient penalty and oversight to ensure they are followed.
The loss of inexpensive public venue is a bit more vexing. It is certainly true, and inarguable, that our communities need public spaces to come together—to spend time, to share ideas and to have fun. It is certainly the role of local government to ensure those spaces exist.
The question is whether other public spaces— schools, churches, community centre, curling rink, Benson Hall, Crystal Palace and such—can adequately serve this role. And, do such public spaces need to be owned by the municipality?
That is why council was correct to put the old town hall on the bidder’s block while reserving the right to reject all proposals. This way it might elicit a variety of creative and innovative arrangements—ways to unburden the County of the ongoing costs, while retaining the utility of the space.
No matter how things turn out for the old town hall— council will, sooner or later, need to confront the issue of its aging inventory of buildings. The problem isn’t going away.
Finally, that there is a market for these buildings and folks willing to invest in them for the betterment of the community is something to be celebrated, not disparaged.
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