Log in & Sign up
Most Commented
Saving Pointe Claire Village’s character
More guidelines needed: group; The area’s historical buildings risk being overrun by modern stores
Max Harrold
The Gazette
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
There’s a field of dreams in Pointe Claire’s scenic lakeside village. For some, it holds the promise of profits, while others are fretting it might become a nightmare of bad taste.
The lot at 253 Lakeshore Rd., at the corner of Cartier Ave., was an Esso gas station for years, but now it’s been cleared out, save for some tall grass swaying in the breeze. The lot’s new owner, Bkamp Investments, operates a
47-unit condo building on Cartier and plans a two-storey commercial building that will fit in well with the village for the lot, a Bkamp employee who would not give her name said last week.
But heritage buffs fear that without more historically-minded guidelines from the city of Pointe Claire, an ugly box might rise in the spot just steps away from painstakingly restored heritage buildings, and damage the street’s picturesque appeal for tourists and businesses.
“We’re already losing the soul of the village,” complained Claude Arsenault, president of the Société pour la Sauvegarde du Patrimoine de Pointe Claire, a non-profit group with volunteers that conducts walking tours of the village whose parish was founded in 1713. “In my lifetime, I’ve seen more than 25 heritage buildings disappear here because of fires or renovations,” said Arsenault, 52, who grew up in the village on de Breslay Ave.
A stroll on Lakeshore with Arsenault reveals what, in his opinion, has fragmented the architectural integrity and “smothered the charm of this place as a Québécois village.”
There’s the former National Bank building at 308 Lakeshore that was renovated with metal siding instead of wood. And a building across the street at 309 that was rebuilt after a fire in 2005 seems to echo the mistakes of its neighbour, Arsenault said.
“It’s New England style,” he said with disdain. In many cases, he explained, renovations to buildings omitted references to the things that were characteristic of the village – and Quebec – historically: a sloping roof, often made of tin, dormer windows and the buildings’ generous recession from the street.
Mary Currie, a dentist who bought her 1930s brick office building on Lakeshore in 2001, did research before conducting major renovations.
“I tried to keep it as close as possible to what it was in the 1930s,” Currie said. “For instance, I wouldn’t install a wheelchair access ramp in the front. I would put it in the back.”
Peter Pickrell, owner of the Westmount florist shop at 343 Lakeshore and a co-owner of the building at 309 Lakeshore, said more grant money for renovations to heritage properties from the city and the province would be a great incentive.
Right now, grants can pay for 25 per cent of such renovations. Pickrell agreed with Arsenault that if the grants rose to 50 per cent, it would go a long way toward preventing the town from becoming a mish-mash of styles.
“I suggested a tin roof (for the florist shop), but my partners said we couldn’t afford it so we went with shingles,” Pickrell said.
Pointe Claire Mayor Bill McMurchie brushed aside Arseanault’s criticisms.
The former National Bank building “was modern in every sense of the term” before the building’s current incarnation, he said. The pharmacy it now houses was much needed, he added.
“We have to have commerce in order to stay
viable,” McMurchie said.
Pointe Claire’s planning committee, planning advisory board and city council keep a good eye on changes to buildings so that “they reflect the general character of the village,” he added.
The city hasn’t the money to hire an architectural preservationist, as Arsenault has called for, the mayor said.
A new urban plan will be presented to council this fall and it will be the subject of public hearings before it is adopted, McMurchie said.
André Charbonneau, who has restored four heritage buildings in the village, said the community risks losing what makes it special over time if expert guidance isn’t provided.
Charbonneau won an award for his restoration of Maison Antoine Pilon, a cottage built in 1710 at 258 Lakeshore.
But that project came after serious mistakes elsewhere, he said.
“I demolished two old buildings in the village in 1988,” said Charbonneau, 66. “I didn’t know better and I was having a nervous depression. Every building is special somehow.”
Pointe Claire “should stop worrying about parking and more about beautifying the village. We have to protect what’s there or else there won’t be anything left to protect.”
mharrold@thegazette.canwest.com