"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Friday 1 May 2015

VISION ! ! ! FANTASY! ! ! COLD HARD REALITY! ! ,

I hear a sale has fallen through on the Horton house.
The list price is $1.4 million. Heritage restrictions on the property are said to be the reason the sale fell through. 
That's the second real estate deal I have heard of on Yonge Street that went south. The first was in the hollow on Yonge Street. 
Property, once site of first Browning House built in Aurora,was proposed for a Montessori school. Plans were made.Work started. Foundations discovered to be wonky. 
Similar to Church Street School and various other vintage properties in town. 
Exterior walls had to be propped on all sides with two--by -fours leaning counterwise. 
A sorry sight of blight on Yonge streetscape for several years
Signalling to all who passed this is not a place  where things get done in a hurry.
A Promenade Plan enveloped in a Strategic Plan 
envisioned decorative concrete sidewalks and designer heritage street furniture at public cost of millions.
While a ruinous structure seemingly smote by an angry deity towered at entry point to the heritage district.
Meetings had been held. Rear access proposed and opposed by neighbours. More meetings. New plans for elaborate underground parking and access from Yonge Street proposed.
Humungous expense. 
A final meeting. 
For sale signs posted once more. 
New sale complete to the point of obtaining financing proved unavailable for heritage restricted property
The tiny tale unfolds. Strategic Plan tangled with a Promenade Plan unravels and comes to nought. 
Good news is the town did not spend staff recommended millions on decorative concrete and designer  heritage furniture to accommodate phantom pedestrians promenading in the downtown envisioned in pretty pictures on the pages of a consultant study.
After three years staff are now recommending the. Strategic Plan be reviewed. With another consultant study  of course.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...


This entire affair is one of the stupidest to have ever come before Council, directly or indirectly.

Good riddance to Horton House and its neighbouring ilk.

Anonymous said...

"Stratigic" gotta love that word. What a joke. A very expensive joke.

Anonymous said...

Those properties are doomed. They have been available for far too long & every possible purchaser has been through them with no takers, Only the town remains as a possible sucker-in-waiting.