Neighbours lose appeal: Côte St. Antoine house to be demolished

Yuri Arutyunov, the owner of 310 Côte St. Antoine, gained approval from Westmount's Demolition Committee to tear down the 1960s-style bungalow featuring a sloping roof, in order to replace it with a two-storey house with a flat roof.

The immediate neighbours to the west, Jean Philippe Aubert and Janet Weinroth of 316 Côte St. Antoine, had claimed the proposed building would affect their view of Murray Park and reduce the amount of natural daylight falling on their property.

They were also preoccupied by a proposed driveway alongside their home, and the infringement of their privacy by a terrace on the new building's roof.

Weinroth's daughter, Michele, who testified at a demolition committee hearing last year, said that the health of her mother—who suffers from heart problems—could be seriously impacted by the demolition and construction phases, which are expected to last as long as two years. Janet Weinroth underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 1992 and has undergone two coronary angioplasty interventions since then.

The City of Westmount's Planning and Advisory Committee had no objection to the demolition since the present building is typical of suburban style housing in the area, without being an outstanding example of the modern period.

At an appeal hearing last Thursday at Westmount City Hall, the Weinroths asked city council to consider seriously "the very humanitarian concerns raised" in their appeal submission and to recall that, by virtue of Westmount bylaw 1317, city council has a "discretionary power" to modify or reverse the demolition committee's decision "in the best interests of all."

Despite the plea, Mayor Karin Marks told the Examiner the City had no choice in the matter because the demolition bylaw was written with very specific reasoning. "Really its goal is one of two things," she said. "It's to look at whether or not the house has value and whether the replacement program has value."

Marks noted that the public hearing would not have taken place, except for the fact the owner of 310 Côte St. Antoine sought a demolition permit.

"If the man wanted to completely renovate his house and put additions on and build a piece onto it, which he could do with absolutely no public consultation, it would also involve digging and building," she said. "It's only because he has chosen to completely remove the other one and start a new one that we have a public process."

Michele Weinroth said her parents delivered their appeal with a certain prescience that the decision had already been made.

"In a sense, there were a lot of signals indicating unofficially and tacitly that it was already a done deal," she said. Although the Weinroths were allowed to speak freely, she added that it "was sort of an illusion of democracy, as it were. Because why did we go through the whole thing?"