London, Ont., woman ‘heartbroken’ city plans to expropriate, demolish 120-year-old house to widen street

NationalPost.com
Jan. 9, 2017
Norman De Bono

 Nan Finlayson just wants to stay in her home, but she likely won’t be able to.

Finlayson’s 120-year-old home at 100 Stanley St. in London, Ont., is facing expropriation and demolition because the city wants to widen Wharncliffe Road at the Horton Street underpass, a critical bottleneck in north-south traffic flow.

“They want to cut down the trees, destroy my garden and demolish my house,” said Finlayson, 75, who has lived in the home 28 years.

“I am stunned. My heart is broken. I want to fight this, I think other alternatives can be done to achieve these goals.”

Doug MacRae, manager transportation planning and design for the city, said there’s no way to avoid demolishing Finlayson’s home and others in the area.

The city has hired a consultant and been in talks with CN Rail whose line crosses the bridge creating the narrow underpass.

The only way to widen the road is to build new abutments — those massive stone walls creating the tunnel and supporting the train and tracks on the bridge. The abutments must be moved farther apart, and they have to be big to support the train and tracks, he said.

“It is a complex undertaking, we have scrutinized it thoroughly and looked at different options.”

Large tracts of land near where the bridge and abutments are now will need to be acquired and a large crane has to be located on site, meaning some homes will be taken down, including Finlayson’s, MacRae said.

“We have to go in behind the existing abutments and build the foundation for a new one. If this was easy, it would have been done decades ago,” he said.

“We realize this is stressful on the property owners.”

The city plans to widen the narrow underpass to four lanes from three with two turn lanes as well — to better handle the heavy traffic flow on the north-south artery.

The city hopes to begin the work by 2020 but does not know how much it will cost because the environmental assessment is still being done, MacRae said.

Finlayson said officials must find a way to save her historic home at the southeast corner of Stanley and Wharncliffe.

“They want to turn this into Highway 401,” she said. “This is a beautiful home, it is solid. It has had trains thundering by its back and is still as solid as can be, and very comfortable. I have a lot of fond memories here.”

Coun. Stephen Turner has followed the issue, been to public meetings and spoken with Finlayson. But he agrees there appears to be no way around taking down her heritage home.

“It does not seem like there is another solution, I wish there was,” he said. “The complexity of the engineering here is high.”

The city also looked at eliminating two wide sidewalks and turning them into traffic lanes but could not figure out a new pedestrian walkway.

“It is tough, it is gut wrenching for us,” Turner said.

The property’s heritage designation means little when it comes to possible demolition, perhaps delaying the wrecking ball by 60 days, said Maggie Whalley, past-president of the London chapter of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario.

“It is designated, it has a plaque and we will do our best” to fight demolition, she said. “We will try to convince people in the city it should be retained. It is really a gem, there is no other way to describe it.”

The home has been lovingly restored and maintained and its grounds featured on garden walks, Whalley said.

“It is a lovely little cottage. I feel terrible about this.”

MacRae has been in regular contact with Finlayson. He also had feedback from other homeowners in the area and there is support for the project because increasing traffic flow is needed.

“It is an important corridor to get across town, it causes delays and safety issues. We see an elevated collision rate as they merge to one lane,” he said.

The city held public meetings about the project in June and November with residents.

“The consensus was there was a lot of support for the project but there will be an impact and we are working with property owners to mitigate,” MacRae said.

This year the city will begin a similar reconstruction project at Wharncliffe just north of Oxford Street where there is also a narrow two-lane bottleneck caused by a bridge underpass. That will also see Wharncliffe expanded to four lanes, with a turn lane. Property acquisition, including expropriation, has begun in the area, and similar to the Horton Street underpass, homes will be demolished, MacRae said.