A 115-year-old Vancouver heritage home headed for demolition inspired many Vancouverites to gather in protest.
The Legg Residence, located in Vancouver's West End neighbourhood, is set to be torn down and replaced with a 17-storey condo, The Province reports.
The Arts and Crafts mansion was built in 1899, when the area was one of the city's most sought after neighbourhoods, according to protest organizers. People opposed to the demolition were encouraged to bring "messages, pictures and mementoes of a vanishing Vancouver to attach to the orange fences" outside the mansion on Sunday.
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Vancouver Heritage House Demolition Protest, May 2014
Aside from the historical significance attached to the city's heritage buildings, people are also worried about the environmental impact of home tear downs.
As Fiona Tinwei Lam wrote for The Tyee:
A 2011 City of Vancouver policy report on deconstruction states that demolishing a typical home creates 50 tonnes of waste, excluding the concrete foundation. According to another report prepared for the Greater Vancouver Sewerage and Drainage District, 55 per cent of waste arising from demolition, land-clearing and construction that goes to the two Metro Vancouver landfills comes from residential demolition. Wood represents the largest proportion of that waste by weight (54 per cent, with a total annual estimated weight of 150,823 tonnes).
The Legg Residence is an A-list home, meaning it is "cited for 'special significance,'" SFU professor Elizabeth Seaton explained to The Province. Tearing down homes with this status is a "humongous slippery slope," she added.
The Legg Residence sits on land valued at $5 million, CBC News reports. Three or four of the city's old homes are being torn down every day, Elizabeth Murphy of Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver told the news outlet.
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