And I respect him for doing so, but it's really a long mismanagement.
Here's the report on the historical nature of the site.
http://www.calgary.ca/PDA/pd/Pages/Herit...Calgary-resources.aspx?dhcResourceId=461
In a nutshell after the loss of almost all evidence that East Victoria Park was once a residential community, that house was the most architecturally interesting one remaining, but also for other reasons as detailed in the report.
"If it had historical significance then the city and/or province should have done something decades ago to preserve it.".
I agree, particularly since 10 years ago the 3 million dollar restoration budget might have been significantly less.
In general, the province isn't interested in sites unless they have provincial significance, and particularly where a municipality has it's own heritage planners and budget. Maybe if it was in small hamlet they might get more involved directly.
The province has the ability to essentially wave a magic wand and legally protect a site, without providing the owner compensation, but have only done so maybe 3 times in 20 years, and again only on provincially relevant sites.**
The city can also do the same, but in their case they must "compensate the owner for loss of economic value".
In both cases it's almost irrelevant because the last feasible plan from a few years ago was to simply move the house one lot over onto city property, freeing up the land for full redevelopment potential by the private owner. But again, it never happened, there simply wasn't political will or just general indifference.
**I like that these 'sticks' exist, but I am not comfortable with them being used except in greatly destructive circumstances (Say a developer bought all of the historical buildings on Stephen Ave and planned to tear a bunch of them down.) Far better to have a full array of bonuses, tax credits, etc.
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