Shadow of demolition will spare no one

On Thursday, April 5, just prior to Easter weekend, a hearing took place at Westmount City Hall to consider the humanitarian reasons for not demolishing 310 Côte St. Antoine. The case is now familiar to Examiner readers. (See article by Martin C. Barry: “Neighbours lose appeal”)

After a 30-minute presentation by appellants, neighbours who live at 316 Côte St. Antoine, the final verdict arrived; it took the council a mere 20 minutes to dismiss the plea. Given the absence of four councillors, the three councillors who had made the original decision as the part of the demolition committee, effectively commanded a majority to rule on the merits of their very own initial finding.

A detailed defense of arguments by the appellants, which had been meticulously researched, crafted over six months and passionately delivered, was neatly and matter-of-factly swept aside. Fifty-one signatures from Westmount residents in support of the appellants’ appeal had been collected. None of these were acknowledged; not one minor request for environmentally friendly demolition procedures was granted.

The neighbours, Janet Weinroth and Jean-Philippe Aubert, now face two years of considerable distress and fear for their health. Their last remaining years will be ruined with the prospect of a traumatic demolition and the ensuing construction period that lies ahead.

An Examiner interview with Mayor Karin Marks speaks volumes: “The demolition bylaw was written with very specific reasoning. ‘Really,’ said Marks, ‘its goal is one of two things … to look at whether or not the house has value and whether the replacement program has value’"

Value is a much-laden word. But in this context, the term does not refer to human concerns, nor to ecological benefits nor even to architectural value: it means quite plainly economic and fiscal value. If the house that replaces 310 Côte St. Antoine proves profitable, then the bylaw stands firm, indifferent to human need, environmental health and architectural heritage.

There is a lesson here for all Westmounters, whose elegant Victorian houses sit adjacent or not far from a 1960s dwelling. Demolition is in the air and close to home. The rights of individuals do not count; the bylaws which favour development for “value” will spare no one — not the rich, nor the poor, not the young, nor the old, not aesthetic beauty, nor natural environment.

The case of 310 Côte St. Antoine foreshadows a larger re-configuration of Westmount. The phenomenon will bear on the City’s ecology as much as on its demographics. Appeals before City Hall are, it would seem, practically futile; but perhaps they carry a moral force. They show those who are witness to proceedings that something has gone terribly wrong, and that only new legislation which is just and genuinely democratic, can right those wrongs and suggest a better future.