Previous Issues
Province cupable for Kennedy neglect
?As we reported last week, the committee advising Council on the future worth of the buildings on the Kennedy House site has made some sadly predictable findings in its preliminary report.
The most encouraging is that the school building has mostly superficial damage and can be carefully restored to valuable public use. The gymnasium suffered little water damage, and the classrooms can serve a variety of functions. In fact, the mayor has already publicly called for ideas from local organizations on how they might put the building to use, and has suggested that a volunteer clean-up bee might remedy much of the vandalism in one weekend. We’d be happy to help him organize such an event.
Two other smaller buildings would have futures mostly as shops for the Parks and Rec. Department. But the most disappointing (though hardly surprising) parts of the report deal with the two buildings most visible from the Seventh Concession, the buildings which for most of us were the visual symbols of St. John’s School, the predecessor to Kennedy House: the old staff residence along the tree-lined drive (the former farmhouse), and the huge dormitory building at the end of it.
We toured the buildings about four years ago, when the Province was still maintaining 24-hour security, and again a few months ago, shortly after the Township completed negotiations to purchase the property. The difference was shocking.
First the province reduced its on-site security to about half-days, and this almost immediately resulted in flooding which substantially damaged some of the most useful rooms in the dormitory, including two large rec. rooms and the chapel. The buildings were then virtually abandoned altogether, which resulted in massive vandalism particularly in the dormitory, and in steady deterioration of the farmhouse in particular, which because of its age was greatly vulnerable to the elements.
This neglect of such valuable public buildings, particularly on a site in which the province knew the Township to have great interest, is more than a shame, it’s a criminal waste of the years of care which previously were dedicated to them, and the dollars which paid for them. Ontario Realty, which totally abrogated its responsibility to take care of the site while awaiting a decision on its future, had a colossal nerve to charge anything at all for the transfer of the property to the Township. As the Mayor acknowledges, the price tag was for the land, not for the buildings. But it still makes our blood boil.
Having seen the condition of the buildings, it’s hard to argue, even for sentimental reasons, with the advice of the experts to demolish the farmhouse and the dormitory. They had great possibilities, but thanks to the thoughtless neglect of the province, those possibilities will never be realized. Now we just have to make the best of what’s left.
