Calgary Heritage Initiative forums

[josh white]

Heritage's new advocates


Calgary Herald
Published: Monday, April 24, 2006

For too many years, Calgary's attitude towards its heritage buildings has been the cavalier one of here today, gone tomorrow. With the year-long search for a new heritage planner culminating in the hiring of David Plouffe, the tide of destruction can be stanched.

When an old building's fate becomes contentious, two sides typically square off. One side wants to save the building, often just for the sake of saving it, the other wants to raze it to make way for another steel-and-glass tower. Plouffe's job will be to find the middle ground.

Not every old building is worth saving; some can be torn down but commemorated. Hiring Plouffe, who has extensive experience in public programs at the Vancouver Museum, means the city will finally develop a plan for rationally assessing its heritage buildings, minus the usual factions ending up firing shots at each other.

Without that plan, which Plouffe will develop over the next 18 months, the city's rapid growth risks obliterating its heritage. If Calgary wants to find its niche leading the way for management of the precious relics of its civic history, there must be a truce called in the heritage-building wars to let cooler minds prevail.
© The Calgary Herald 2006