A Heritage Permit has been approved for a planned expansion of Wellington’s Drake Devonshire Inn.
During Tuesday’s council meeting, the heritage permit application returned before council, after having been previously sent back to municipal staff for additional work. The owners of the Inn are seeking to expand with a three story addition on the east side of the existing two-and-a-half storey hotel. The proposed addition would be located within the footprint of a handful of modern structures on the property, which would be demolished to make way. Municipal staff recommended to council that the application be approved, with a report stating that the current plans comply with all municipal and provincial policy requirements.
Council briefly discussed the motion, with councillor John Hirsch saying that the process will need to be revisited and adjusted in the future, as the heritage committee wasn’t able to complete it’s required work before a deadline in provincial law would cause the permit to default to approved. The applicants were unwilling to allow any extra time, and threatened to take the matter to the Ontario Land Tribunal had there been any further delays.
“The amazing thing is that we’re we’re being held hostage by the applicant,” said councillor Hirsch. “We were given extremely short amount of time to actually look at the permit application.”
After a brief discussion, one amendment was put forward to the motion to allow additional windows on the north side of the building, which was approved. The motion was then approved as amended.
