A few years ago, Ted took down an old wooden fence in our back yard and replaced it with a few prickly sticks he assured me were raspberry canes. This summer, instead of waiting for a dry day to scrape and paint, he spends a few minutes each evening picking a handful of red ripe raspberries.
It's made me look at boundaries and fences with a new eye.
I often walk past the perimeter of that expanse of grey that was the Queen's Hotel for over one hundred years. The hotel was torn down a few years ago, ostensibly to create needed parking for the office building next door. Whether you think the lot is gravel to be more environmentally responsible or to make it easier to build on when the parking is miraculously no longer needed depends on how cynical you are. Regardless, it is now surrounded by a crooked row of that ubiquitous black fencing with a controlled-access gate, presumably an insurer's requirement to keep out patrons of the establishment across the road. Some day we've been promised a memorial plaque to the historic hotel.
(I come from a great tradition of plaque readers, so don't think I'm down on plaques and photographs. The new photomurals of the historic harbour are certainly an improvement on the neutral stucco wall that's beside the loading area where the historic Corbett foundry used to stand. Still, I'd rather show my visitors actual features of the city than take them on a walking tour of pictures of how Owen Sound used to look. )
That same harbourfront store has the latest length of the afore-mentioned “wrought iron” fence, actually a pre-fab metal tube coated in plastic. The city added the fence to its requirements for the new building for aesthetic reasons, but this policy may need revisiting. The same fencing around the PetroCan and Kentucky Fried Chicken properties is showing signs of serious corrosion and destruction of the five year warrantied plastic coating.
Most fences, of course, are not for decoration, but to meet regulatory or insurance requirements. While they do not keep out those determined to enter, as was the case with intrepid dirt-bikers, they do allow the property owner to say “I tried” if anything should go amiss.
This kind of butt-covering regulation was no doubt behind our most infamous fence - the two-meter, barbed-wire-topped anti-terrorist barrier intended to demonstrate the Harper government's willingness to do whatever it takes to keep us safe from “evil do-ers”. Cartoonists and comedians across the country had a field day with the government's assumption that any terrorist would have to be both clever enough to evade detection on a trans-Atlantic ship and too stupid to find his way around a 60 meter fence.
I presume insurance or city requirements are behind the ugliest fence in the city – the piecemeal stretch of wire and wood and rusted rebar around the old Kennedy property. Ironically, tourist office staff have to point at it daily as they say to our city's visitors “you go out here and turn ...” . Neighbours are complaining about the weeds and the city is going to see they are cut, but for me the knee-high Queen Anne's lace and chicory are at least a natural distraction from the broken concrete and hideous fence. Has the owner been given seven days to submit a plan for bringing the property up to standards?
In a city of fences, some of which are meant to be decorative but aren't, or to be protective but aren't, around things that once were there but aren't now, are there better options for empty lots? What should the fencing, signage and landscaping standards be?
The best example of the city working with a private owner has to be the old OSCVI property. Mature trees and a well-maintained field have made this space a real public asset while it remained undeveloped. No fences, discreet signs and yes, a plaque about what used to be there. I support downtown housing. I think the development will be healthy for Owen Sound and I really commend Mr. Kruisselbrink and the city for their cooperation on this property thus far. I hope that spirit pervades the next steps of the project and sets a high standard for city relationships with property owners and developers.
And if you're out pricing fence paint to spruce up your own property, don't overlook an edible fence. We can heartily recommend it.
Anne Finlay-Stewart is a public relations consultant and community activist in Owen Sound. Anne@rhymeswithorange.ca
Comments
Not being a city dweller I
Not being a city dweller I cannot speak much to decorative fences, most of our boundaries consist of rock piles, unmarked boundaries in the bush known only to adjoining neighbors. We do have the Queen Anns Lace along with Wild Grape, Hawthorn, Dogwood, young Maple and Cedar delineating out property from the road and to us any flowering “weed” is a wildflower to be left alone and enjoyed as a sign that all is well with nature.
It is this little bit that got my attention…..”I'd rather show my visitors actual features of the city than take them on a walking tour of pictures of how Owen Sound used to look.”
Having been born and raised in Great Britain with its much longer history of (European style) settlement, and having lived for a period of time in a 400 year old thatched cottage (very cozy in the winter and cool in the summer) I perhaps treasure our historic buildings more than most Canadians. It seems that we (Canadians in general) have yet to realize that preserving some of our better historic buildings is important for future generations to understand that feeling of BEING Canadian.
To have a true sense of belonging one must understand somewhat the history of our country, city and neighborhoods (relatively short as it may be in comparison with my country of birth) and seeing a historic building that was instrumental in the development of the city really brings it home. I recently read where the several hundred year old Naval provisioning warehouse for the British fleet in my home town of Gosport (Portsmouth) was preserved and converted into condos. (very expensive ones BTW) So much better, in my view, than tearing the old buildings down and erecting a “modern” eyesore which will probably last less time than the building it replaces.
So to Ann’s point about rather seeing the old buildings rather than pictures of them, I agree. It is important however that they are kept in good repair, and so we must try and find uses for them that preserve the structure whilst adapting them for modern uses. That can be hard to do but not impossible as my former countrymen have amply demonstrated.
Any obstruction that makes it easer to tear down and rebuild rather than preserve and renovate is perhaps a fence that needs removing?
I would venture that the
I would venture that the greatest "fence" in this regard is the lack of true cost economics. If we costed resources correctly, including waste, energy consumption, full cost of production of new materials (environmental, social, economic), we would quickly realize that it is in fact more cost effective to retain and upgrade historic buildings than to tear them down. There would of course be exceptions to this where a building is in a state of extreme disrepair.
The resistance to this type of thinking is ingrained into our econmic system which dictates that we pursue the path of greatest economic growth, not the path of greatest economic and ecological conservation.
Changing this mentality will be a colossal project, but one that is essential to the future well being of our society.