New Westminster city council will give a Queen’s Park resident a break on the costly replacement of windows on a heritage house.
The owners of 318 Fifth St. applied for a heritage revitalization agreement to allow the addition of a 1,623 square-foot laneway house that’s 69 per cent bigger than what’s permitted. As part of the application, they agreed to restore and provide long-term legal protection of the 1908 John and Adelaide Jardine House through a heritage revitalization agreement and a heritage designation bylaw.
A staff report noted that the existing vinyl windows that were installed in 2000 would be replaced with wood-frame windows as part of the restoration. The homeowners recently spoke to the city’s land use and planning commission about the project and expressed concern about the financial and environmental impacts of replacing the windows within the recommended timeline.
A quote indicated the cost of replacing windows on all four sides of the house at Fifth and Blackford streets would range from $121,285 to $147,025. A heritage consultant opposed a proposed wood veneer treatment that would be applied over the top of the existing vinyl windows as an interim solution.
“I think that this applicant has gone a long way to preserve their home and keep it attractive and to put the work into a heritage home that is required. I have a hard time requiring that windows be replaced, just in order to satisfy an HRA. It just doesn’t make sense to me in an environmental sense,” said Coun. Mary Trentadue. “There is nothing wrong with the windows. They are working as they should be now.”
Council supported an option that the windows on the Fifth Street and Blackford Street frontages be replaced within 10 years, and the windows on the other two sides of the house be replaced at the end of their life.
Coun. Patrick Johnstone said the house is being designated, so the city will benefit from the preservation of the heritage home. He said the project also benefits the community in that it meets other goals the city is trying to meet.
“It is meeting those gentle infill and family-friendly housing goals that we are trying to create in our single-family neighbourhoods,” he said. “I feel like we have gotten hung up on a detail about the windows, that is perhaps more concentrating on the trees and not the forest. This house is not under threat. It’s not going to be there for another 10 years, it’s going to be there for 100 years or further. I don’t think it makes a significant difference to the heritage preservation principles we are trying to do if those windows are replaced in 2018 or 2021 or 2028. The important thing is that the house is being preserved.”
Homeowners Hugo and Nancy Shaw said they would paint over the white vinyl on the windows with a new paint product that adheres to vinyl paint and conceals the white vinyl. The windows would be painted in a colour that would blend in with the home’s heritage colours.
