Father and son on quest to save old Woodbridge

Ken Maynard and his family have been working for years to protect heritage buildings on Woodbridge Ave.

Thestar.com
March 6, 2016
By Noor Javed

There is the Woodbridge Ave. of today, and the one that resides in Ken Maynard’s memories.

Maynard, 82, stops at the corner just past the train tracks and points. “My great grandfather Amos Maynard owned the property here, he had a machine shop, and he built all the houses on the street,” he says.

He stops again along the street, which makes up a part of the Woodbridge Heritage Conservation District in Vaughan. “There was a house here, that had gothic windows, and was owned by a little lady named Pinky White,” says Maynard, adding almost apologetically: “I just know too much about this street.”

With Maynard as the guide, a walk down the 650-metre stretch of road takes more than half an hour, spans three centuries and several generations. His great-great grandfather Alfred Maynard came to Woodbridge in the 1860s. Maynard himself was born in a log cabin a street away, and has lived here ever since. His grandson is the seventh generation of Maynards to live in Woodbridge. So it’s easy to see why Maynard is sentimental about every empty lot and storefront he passes along the street.

There’s the travel agency - a butcher shop in its past life - where Maynard’s parents met, when young Kathleen locked herself out of the building one day and a kind neighbour passing by ran home to get a ladder to help her get in. “And that’s how I met my mother,” Maynard jokes.

And the street corner, where there fire bell was erected, and rung whenever there was a fire in town.

“Everyone had a cistern or well, and they would lower pails of water and try to put the fire out,” he says.

It was the same place where the bell rang in 1945, the day the war ended, he says.

It’s in part this nostalgia, and a deep-seeded sense of obligation that has made Maynard and his son Jamie champions of protecting the heritage along Woodbridge Ave., which was once a vibrant agriculture community going back to the 19th century.

If you know where to look between the hodgepodge of townhouses, storefronts and condos, there are remnants of the Woodbridge that once was: the façades of the Inkerman hotel, the Gilmour Hotel and the now city-owned Wallace House. They remain, in part, due to the activism of the Maynards.

And now, almost reluctantly, the Maynards are at it again.

The community’s latest angst is over a 119-condo development that they feel will overshadow a patch of land on Woodbridge Ave. that includes two heritage homes, a number of mature trees, and provides a sense of what the street likely looked like a century ago.

In October, the city’s heritage committee said the original condo design put forward by the Cityzen Development Group and Fernbrook Homes was “not in keeping with the old Woodbridge character,” and asked for some changes. Staff also gave the developer strict guidelines to preserve the Dr. Peter McLean House, which served as the community’s first hospital, and the Thomas Frazer Wallace House.

According to the staff report, the developer’s plans include levelling the hill, moving up the homes to the sidewalk, and getting rid of the large trees on the plot. At a recent public hearing, the lawyer for the developer said they had five community meetings, but it was “difficult to please everyone,” and added that the trees were being cut down to accommodate the streetscape.

In January, residents were told that the city and the developer had struck a deal. The city would allow the developer to build condos higher than the property was zoned for, as long as the developer agreed to give $100,000 in community benefits and toward the streetscape.

At the recent public meeting, an impassioned crowd and members of the Woodbridge Ratepayers Association came out to voice their discontent for the plan. The residents, who have collected more than 200 signatures in a petition against the Woodbridge Ave. project, say they welcome development, as long as it respects the heritage.

Despite a staff recommendation to approve the project, councillors decided to defer the matter until the end of the month. Local Councillor Tony Carella believes the matter will likely be decided at the Ontario Municipal Board, adding that the rendering the developer gave “overwhelmed” the buildings around it.

After so much change in Woodbridge, Ken Maynard says it’s easy to become apathetic.

“I still care,” says Maynard, who was part of the city’s heritage committee for a few years. “It’s a tough thing to do to keep a village in its entirety. We understand that,” he says. “But it could have been done better than it was.”

Woodbridge through decades

1837: Rowland Burr arrives and obtains land and water mill rights. Burr is soon recognized as the “founder of Woodbridge” although at the time, the area was known at the Village of Burwick.

1862: John Abell's agricultural implement factory opens, bringing prosperity to Woodbridge.

1871: Toronto Grey and Bruce Railway opens. The track runs along the west side of present day Kipling Ave.

1882: Incorporation of Woodbridge as a village.

1885: Abell fails to secure railway extension to his factory and relocates to Toronto.

1890s: Population of Woodbridge falls following removal of Abell's factory. At the same time, area farmers become outraged against the introduction of toll roads.

1914: Extension of the Toronto Suburban Railway Company's Weston Line to Woodbridge.

1950s: Woodbridge's population triples after an influx of immigrants (predominantly Italian) following the end of WWII. New homes are built to accommodate them.

1971: The government of York Region is established. The Village of Woodbridge merged with other municipalities to form the Town of Vaughan.