St. George's Church and Hall on Devonshire Crt. in Walkerville will soon be demolished.
Windsor City Council approved the demolition after 18 months of the buildings sitting vacant. As part of the motion, the property will be severed into three separate lots for residential dwellings in keeping with the style of the homes in the neighbourhood.
"It's a sad day in some respects, but the good news is the motion that we adopted tonight allows us to proceed with residential development that certainly maintains the integrity of the neighbourhood, and will honour what the history of that neighbourhood has always been," says Councillor Bill Marra.
Resident Paula Rankin says she's all for protecting heritage but the character of the neighbourhood is just as important.
"We love our neighbourhood, we want to share the neighbourhood so by having three other homes there, three other families have the opportunity to move into Walkerville and enjoy what we have," says Rankin.
Some residents like Elaine Weeks were fighting the demolition hoping for adaptive reuse of the building into multi-residential dwellings or low impact commercial suites.
"We have lost hundreds and hundreds of buildings in Windsor and Walkerville because people think once a building is old and it needs work, tear it down. St. George's Church and Hall are not that old, they are needing work obviously, but there are people that have approached the real estate agent looking at using the church at different ways," says Weeks.
The buildings have been up for sale for 18-months with no offers to buy and repair. An engineers report stated the buildings were unsafe for use, and it was cost prohibitive to repair.
The demolition could happen immediately.
