Late pitches from a pair of residents to give heritage designation to the old Knowles Butcher Shop and Fleury Works properties were overlooked by Aurora council during its meeting on Tuesday, June 25.
During the meeting, council was looking at designating eight properties, after town staff had consulted with the owners of 30 properties deemed good candidates for designation. The owners of the eight properties supported designation; the other 22 did not.
Speaking at the meeting, Christopher Watts from the Aurora Heritage Authority made a pitch for council to designate 9 Wellington St. E., formerly known as Knowles Butcher Shop, despite the owner’s objection.
The Knowles family ran the butcher shop in downtown Aurora for nearly a century.
“Heritage is not an inconvenience; it’s effectively our inheritance, and we need to make sure we are good stewards of that,” said Watts.
Aurora resident Dave Heard was pushing for council to consider designating another property, where the owner had also been against designation. He made the case for the Bacon Basketware property at 19-37 Wellington St. W., which operated originally as the Fleury Works.
Joseph Fleury was a businessman who developed farming equipment, notably the Fleury plough, that went on to be sold around the world.
Heard said the building merited saving due to its historical significance, and suggested council make active use of the space rather than just designating it, like a “distillery district model.”
“Our stories, I believe, are marketable, they’re fantastic for tourism and I think the heritage committee, members of the public, and museum staff are doing a great job going down that rabbit hole and finding out beyond the brick, finding out about the people,” he said.
"But we need the backdrop to keep these stories, and to finish our story, which is tourism with heritage.”
Adam Robb, manager of policy planning and heritage, said there is a general “stigma” against heritage designations, and several councillors questioned whether there was a need for more education.
Coun. John Gallo said he liked the more “phased approach” being taken this time around. In 2023, the town sought designation of 30 properties without first consulting owners, receiving some backlash as a result. The town ultimately designated 18 properties in 2023.
Mayor Tom Mrakas said Aurora has been a “leader” in protecting heritage properties, adding while he wants to work with owners, “there will come a time where this council has to make that decision.”
“I do believe we should be working with those property owners to get that buy-in. If we do have some time, let’s get that buy-in. But at the end of the day, especially these two properties that were presented to us have extreme value from a historic perspective to the Town of Aurora.”
While the 22 properties where owners were opposed to designation weren’t designated at this meeting, they could still be in the future.
Provincial legislation had imposed a deadline to of Jan. 1, 2025 for municipalities to designate heritage properties, or they would be stricken from the heritage register.
But, the province passed a bill earlier in June to extend the deadline to Jan. 1, 2027.
The 22 properties will remain on the town’s heritage register until that date.
Ultimately, council voted to pursue designation for the eight properties where the owners supported designation.
