Editorially speaking…
I know I’ve asked this before, but, well, progress, or what purports to be same, is ever-astir.
My question: When is heritage, even purportedly dedicated heritage, no longer safe from change? Why, when it gets in the way of progress and, in particular, ever-morphing social change, of course.
The latest victim is Victoria’s Cedar Hill School, 1912-13, proof yet again that nothing is really written in stone in our society.
Ah, but we have the consolation of knowing that it’s going to be razed in a “thoughtful and respectful” process for a good cause, below-market housing. Not to mention what have become the obligatory souvenirs, in this case, “”professional architectural documentation of the exterior and interior with archival-quality prints (whatever happened to ‘photos’?)” to be provided to the Saanich Archives.
Grade 2 class, 1961-62, of Cedar Hill Elementary School. —Facebook post by Dbbie Lawrie Garrett, class photo courtesy of Maureen Rieger.
And, at the request of municipal council, “commemoration of the historic school is to be incorporated as part of the future development”.
Two real positives are that the school is to be deconstructed (i.e., demolished by hand) so as to save recyclable materials, and the schoolyard’s mature trees are to be spared.
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Somewhat apropros to the above, two Victoria residents are suing the city over its decision to approve the Roundhouse project in Victoria West. This is the massive remake of the historic E&N Railway yard with its brick building and roundhouse which, while preserved, will be overshadowed by modern skyscrapers. Oops, I meant to say, towers.
According to the plaintiffs, City Council acted unlawfully by failing to adhere to the official community plan “and other guidelines” when it approved the project, thus causing “the loss of community heritage,” as the Times Colonist puts it.
An accompanying artist’s drawing shows the scope of the Roundhouse development, with the row of historic structures dwarfed by the proposed towers. Fifteen years in the making, the project was finally approved by council in July.
The 1912-13 roundhouse has federal Historic Sites and Monuments heritage designation, by the way, so it was never(?) at risk, it’s simply going to be diminished in stature. We’ll have to see how this plays out in court, I guess, but I’ll bet that the developers win out.
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Also on the subject of heritage preservation (or the lack thereof) in the Greater Victoria area, a recent opinion piece in the TC argued that the city’s ‘Old Burying Ground’ deserves not only respect but restoration. (See Victoria’s Pioneer Square: God’s Forgotten Acre.)
When the city placed the headstones in neat rows so as to be able to mow the grass, the original grave locations were lost. —Author’sCollection
This is the old Quadra Street Cemetery, 1855-1873, also known today as Pioneer Square where’ you’re free to walk on the 1300 graves and to picnic on the grass because the City, in its wisdom many years ago, moved surviving headstones to along the back fence. This, long before cemeteries became the targets of vandals.
Whatever happened to, as another letter to the editor had previously pointed out, graveyards being “sacred and sacrosanct and...respected”?
Complaints about the cemetery’s neglect go all the way back to 1884. And here we are, same old, same old, 131 years later.
More recently in the TC, Mur Meadows asked, “What would be the reaction of citizens if Ross Bay [the current city cemetery] was treated with the same disrespect as Pioneer Square has been in the last century?”
Meadows wants formal designation as Pioneer Square Cemetery to be declared by the City. Other than—hopefully—reminding people that it isn’t a park or a picnic ground, I don’t know what this will accomplish. But the status quo is pretty sad, even offensive.
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