Brampton city council votes to demolish heritage block downtown
CBC
Brampton city council voted Wednesday to demolish a heritage block as early as this fall, part of a plan to change the face of the city's downtown.
City council passed a motion to use $6 million from its 2024 budget to tear down theblock of Main Street — once a cultural hub that included the Heritage Theatre, built over 100 years ago.
The properties sit on abandoned underground tunnels the city of 700,000 relies on for flood protection from the Etobicoke Creek. The city plans to use the cleared land for Brampton's 2040 vision to densify downtown. Hazel McCallion LRT, Riverwalk, and the Centre for Innovation are all planned around the city's Main Street.
"No project downtown we were able to complete without dealing with this. And so we've now dealt with it," Mayor Patrick Brown told CBC Toronto after the vote.
"We dealt with a headache, if anything."
The council-endorsed plan includes the purchase of some private properties, and then, according to a city staff report prepared for council, the demolition of the entire north block: 22-28, 30-46, 48, 54-60, 63-71 Main St.
Brampton's general manager of building design and construction says that will be cheaper than the "prohibitive cost" of structural repairs to the neglected properties.
The mostly vacant buildings, located north of city hall, were declared structurally unsound in 2018 and are "in poor condition and do not comply with Ontario Building Code requirements due in part to long-term deterioration," the city report said, recommending they be demolished as early as this fall.
Even though the report lists four private properties the city still needs to purchase before they can be demolished, Brown said only "two small properties are left."
"My goal is that the final pieces of this puzzle we put into place this year, so that we'll be able to start on the construction," he said.
Brown says residents can expect construction downtown for the next five years.
Wednesday's vote came as a surprise to Peeyush Gupta, who owns Wee Smoke Shop, a 174-year-old business that's always operated out of its Main Street location.
He says he's frustrated the city is not factoring in the impact on local businesses and residents, who want the city to find them new locations within downtown before they're asked to leave.
"We were shocked. My wife is crying. Why such a big back stab? None of us had the idea," said Gupta, who is also the Downtown Brampton BIA's secretary.
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