“LARGE ARTS & CRAFTS HOUSE (1899), available for relocation. Contact Dan at [email protected] no later than May 16th, 2014.”
This five-line, one-column classified advertisement appeared under “announcements” on the top of page A33 of the May 14 edition of the Vancouver Courier. It also appeared in WE Vancouver on May 16.
The fact the ad referred to the Legg Residence in Vancouver’s West End wasn’t mentioned.
The heritage home is slated to be knocked down to make way for a 17-storey tower. The city has issued the demolition permit, although it’s unclear when it will happen.
Bing Thom Architects is handling the project.
Efforts were made over the past couple of years to find a way to incorporate the home into the redevelopment, but they failed.
Relocation could have cost a buyer upwards of $300,000.
The ad was placed as part of the City of Vancouver’s requirements for the project’s development permit, in which the applicant committed to “placing an advertisement online through classifieds and social media to offer the house for relocation.”
(Other commitments included: reusing the stone foundation for paving and retaining walls; offering interested parties the opportunity for viewing and salvaging of interior heritage resources and a private demolition sale of remaining materials to assist diverting materials from the landfill.)
No one responded to the ad, according to Brian Jackson, the city’s manager of planning and development.
But how many spotted the brief, somewhat unspecific announcement will never be known.
The Courier, which reported on the possibility that the house could be relocated in this column on May 16, asked Jackson why the city didn’t require a more visible announcement, with more details, or whether it should have.
Jackson said the notice conformed with permit requirements. They were inked before Jackson took his position with the city.
“They did offer the residence. Now one of the things is there has been a lot of media attention in the last month or so, which was coincidence with the time that we were holding back the demolition permit, so if anybody would have been interested that they would have been in touch with Bing Thom’s office and my understanding is that nobody had called them about the house,” he said.
Pressed about how someone would have noticed the small ad, Jackson said: “It comes to the point of reasonableness in our determination. And, we determined that they made a reasonable effort to determine whether there were people interested in purchasing the house. The ads, combined with the fact that it’s public knowledge that the house was available, was reasonable.”
He added later: “To be honest, the condition was written before I got here. I would have liked, in retrospect, more specificity in terms of the type of ad, the location of the ad, the size of the ad, the publications the ad should have appeared in. But given that there were none of those details set out in the conditions, I have to go by what was written at the time and they followed the condition that was written.”
Going forward, city expectations may change.
“First of all I’m hoping there aren’t very many cases like this in the future. We have a lot of good heritage news in the coming months, but if there ever is a case where somebody offers a house for sale, I would definitely make sure that the condition is much more explicit,” Jackson said.
Heritage Vancouver had been looking into the possibility of moving the house with Nickel Bros Moving Ltd., but costs were prohibitive.
A person contacted the Courier indicating he was interested in discussing options for saving the Legg Residence, but it’s unclear how his inquiries turned out.
An email to the Bing Thom firm was not returned by the Courier’s print deadline.
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