Within the month, a recommendation should be forthcoming from town staff to council, advancing its proposal for the final disposition of the sad, empty, derelict Co-op grain elevator looming along the west side of the GO Transit tracks just to the north of Main Street.

The councillors, known for their sensitivity to art, museums, antiquities and historic sites, have been urged by GO Transit to permit the Greater Toronto Transit Authority (GTTA) to demolish the elevator to make room for more parking. In response to the demolition permit request they have also received an eloquent plea and artfully documented submission from the town’s Heritage Advisory Committee to consider having the elevator added to the town’s built heritage area inventory and to preserve it from the wrecker’s ball. What you have here is a good old-fashioned Catch-22. You cannot have it both ways — and the councillors, with the advice of their technical staff, will have to make a decision. That is what they pay them those big bucks for. Or will they really have to decide?

This columnist canvassed roughly 50 people at random to get their take on the old elevator. Almost everyone surveyed declared, “It’s an eyesore” but, as one more thoughtful respondent suggested, “It’s our eyesore.” Only those associated with heritage had a lot to say that was positive. And two respondents would actually ask, “What grain elevator?”

Provincial legislation insists that “significant built heritage resources…and landscapes shall be preserved” and the Ontario Heritage Act helps to clarify “significant” using three major categories for assessment: Design or physical value; historical or associative value; contextual value. The Heritage Advisory Committee took considerable pains to embellish, for council, all three criteria, adding the arguable point that there are only five grain elevators left in Ontario and that this one stands as some kind of enduring monument to the robust agrarian culture which created this township and which we, who honour history, dare not forget. Their plea, delivered persuasively to council, introduced three “options” as they were described, to assist council in its deliberations:

• The elevator remains on site and is upgraded and maintained by GO Transit;
• The elevator remains on site and is taken over privately
• The elevator is moved to a new site in WS, optimally to the upgraded Memorial Park site as a centrepiece for a “country-inspired park” where it would be used as the “in-plan” support building.

To buttress this third option, it was pointed out that GO had identified a sum of $75,000 to demolish the elevator, consistent with its request for a demolition permit, and that sum could be applied to the third option – that GO would simply allocate it to whoever would move it — so long as it was moved. For all of which, the Heritage Advisory Committee members should be applauded for their creativity. Meanwhile, the planning group under the capable aegis of Sally Campbell, studies the options and prepares its proposals for the March council. Is that all there is? Well…

There really are not three options at all. The property was purchased lock, stock and grain elevator by the GTTA (GO). It is theirs. They have undertaken the nicety, as a matter of standard policy, of requesting a demolition permit. Demolition, as confirmed by the engineering department of GTTA, is their sole intent. They need more parking and this space represents an impediment to the property they have already purchased to the immediate north.

With this and the Co-op space, their 268 parking spaces would inflate to possibly 375 –probably just enough to accommodate population growth. GO Transit has no intention of maintaining a historic site. On option number two, they are equally adamant that it shall not be owned privately nor by anyone else, leaving only option three.

On this they concede that if Stouffville will move it, they can have the $75,000 earmarked for demolition. But, as engineers remind us, it will still take almost that much to dismantle – maybe more because the effort will be to preserve while dismantling. Then it will have to be moved to the park and, at goodness knows what cost, refabricated and restored after twenty years of disuse, and then maintained for posterity as, among other things, an irresistible magnet for kids in the park after hours.

All the while, still another station for Stouffville — at a site colourfully named Lincolnville at 6840 Bethesda Road and 10^th Line – is being quickly assembled for this burgeoning population by GTTA. The convenience and economic impact of these junctions may be tricky to quantify accurately, but it is all good for business and property values.

And that tends to absolve most things.

When the CNR tore down the Stiver Bros adjacent elevators six years ago, there was nary a peep. According to council minutes, the Heritage Advisory Committee was alerted as early as September, 2005 that GO was issuing a request for a demolition permit, which it regularly renewed, to be polite. To this date, despite the committee’s thorough and conscientious recitation of the criteria for “designation” (which, to acquire ultimate provincial approval, may take as much as another year, no matter where the edifice reposed) it has never been designated. And, all the while, Schell Lumber, which continues to serve this town so very well, lives with this firetrap beside them.

When my family moved to this village some years ago, Stouffville pridefully claimed the honour of being the goldfish capital of the world, thanks to the impressive establishment of old George Ashton on Albert Street where the Goldfish Supply Company sent so many goldfish to university research institutions, pet stores, retailers, individuals and even made aquaria — and suddenly it was Testa Villa, supplying still another much needed service. And we have all lived without this most unique enterprise since 1971.

The way it is shaping up, it looks like we might also be due for a grain-elevator-free environment after all these years. But don’t underestimate your Heritage Advisory Committee.

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