sa国际传媒 Housing blames 鈥渕iscommunication鈥� for a blunder that led work crews to mistakenly rip out the original wood windows from the third floor of historic Mount Edwards Apartment House in Victoria.
Victoria city officials say the work was done without a permit and contrary to sa国际传媒 Housing鈥檚 commitment to protect the heritage-designated building, which was built in 1911 as one of the city鈥檚 first apartment blocks.
The province bought the property at 1002 Vancouver St. for $3.65 million in 2016 to house former residents of a tent city that sprang up behind the Victoria courthouse.
The following year, sa国际传媒 Housing applied for re-zoning to permit 78 supportive housing units and 15 affordable rental units.
One of the conditions of the application was that the third-storey windows would be maintained during renovations.
Work crews, however, recently removed the windows without a heritage alteration permit and replaced them with cheaper vinyl knock-offs.
City staff didn鈥檛 pull any punches in a report to city council, noting that the vinyl windows 鈥渦ndermine the integrity of the historic building and give it a more superficial appearance.鈥�
Council, however, was caught in a bind. The damage was already done by the time the city found out about it, and councillors were reluctant to ask sa国际传媒 Housing 鈥� a key partner in providing affordable housing 鈥� to displace vulnerable tenants and spend even more money to replace the vinyl windows with wood replicas.
Instead, they approved the work retroactively and directed Mayor Lisa Helps to send a letter to sa国际传媒 Housing expressing the city鈥檚 displeasure.
鈥淭his is a terrible situation to be put in and I feel quite resentful that we are in this situation,鈥� Helps told a committee of the whole meeting.
鈥淏ut [given] the cost of replacement at this point, the disruption to the tenants, this is the worst-case decision that we have to make.鈥�
Coun. Charlayne Thornton-Joe echoed that frustration.
鈥淎ll of us know that if this were not sa国际传媒 Housing and [they] were not providing housing for vulnerable people, we would not let this go forward.鈥�
Coun. Ben Isitt proposed having sa国际传媒 Housing make a donation to a city heritage fund as a form of deterrent to prevent future mistakes.
鈥滻nstead of letting them get off scot-free, maybe meet them in the middle,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he most costly option for them would be to have to put entirely new wood windows in.鈥�
Council agreed that Helps should ask for a voluntary contribution to a heritage fund and suggested the amount should equal whatever sa国际传媒 Housing saved by installing cheaper windows.
sa国际传媒 Housing, meanwhile, has issued a statement acknowledging that the rezoning requirement 鈥渨ould have included a plan for renovating the windows in a historically accurate way.鈥�
鈥淒ue to a miscommunication between rezoning staff and construction staff, this item was missed,鈥� the statement said. 鈥淏y the time this was discovered, the majority of the windows had been replaced.鈥�
sa国际传媒 Housing stated that it did restore other heritage elements of the building, including the original facade and upper cornices.
鈥淭he replacement windows, which mirrored the historical aesthetic of the original windows, were installed with cost- and energy-efficient materials,鈥� the agency said.
sa国际传媒 Housing added that it has yet to receive Help鈥檚 letter, but will consider the request for a donation if it鈥檚 received.
Helps said she hopes the agency will take her letter to heart.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a rather unfortunate circumstance,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think that there was any malintent on anyone鈥檚 part. It does sound like a genuine miscommunication between one arm of sa国际传媒 Housing and the other.鈥�
