Peterborough city council will be holding a special general committee meeting on Monday afternoon (November 3) to review its current decision on heritage designation for the General Electric factory complex at 107 Park Street North in downtown Peterborough.
At the 2 p.m. meeting, council will consider a recommendation from the Peterborough Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee (PACAC) that specific buildings be designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in addition to those that council approved at its October 14 meeting.
On October 14, council voted 6-5 to accept recommendations in a 154-page heritage impact assessment (HIA) report prepared by ERA Architects Inc. on behalf of GEPR Energy Canada Inc., a subsidiary of GE Vernova, for which buildings in the complex should receive heritage designation.
The HIA report accompanied GE Vernova’s notice of intention to the city to demolish and remove all other buildings in the complex’s centre block that haven’t been used since 2018. The 26 buildings to be demolished represent around 84,500 square metres (910,000 square feet) of the 104,000 square metre (1.1 million square feet) site.
The proposed demolition is controversial because of known contamination of the industrial site with toxic hazardous substances over the past 125 years and the impact of a demolition on the safety of the surrounding residential neighbourhoods.
At its October 14 meeting, council decided to accept the recommendations made in the HIA report for which buildings should receive heritage designation: buildings 2, 2A, 8A, 21, 24A, 26, 28, and 30. Those buildings include two currently in use by GE Vernova, four currently in use by BWXT (an independent company that was originally part of GE Vernova’s nuclear energy division), and two unoccupied buildings with heritage value that will be retained and mothballed pending potential future uses.
While councillors rejected a city staff recommendation that would have seen the city hire a consultant to conduct a peer review of the HIA report, they voted to direct staff to consult with PACAC and report back on the buildings proposed for heritage designation.
At its meeting on Wednesday (October 29), PACAC reviewed GE Vernova’s notice of intent to demolish along with the HIA report and the company’s building removals plan.
In addition to the buildings proposed for heritage designation in the HIA report that council approved, PACAC is recommending that facades along Albert Street be retained for buildings 8, 34, 16A, 16, and 22 in their current location and be included in the designation, along with building 13 (the power house).
In a report to be presented to council at Monday’s special general committee meeting, the city’s commissioner of infrastructure, planning and growth management Blair Nelson notes that, if council agrees with PACAC’s recommendation for the additional buildings to receive heritage designation, it would need to reconsider its original October 14 decision.
Council’s final decision on which buildings to designate will affect how the city serves its notice of intent to designate to GE Vernova — which must be done by November 7, the 60-day deadline under the Ontario Heritage Act given that GE Vernova sent its notice of intention for demolition to the city on September 8.
Whatever decision council makes at the special general committee meeting will be confirmed at a regular city council meeting at 6 p.m. on Tuesday (November 4), where registered delegations will be heard.
Although council is also having a regular meeting at 6 p.m. on Monday evening where the decision could be confirmed, the agenda for that meeting is already ambitious as it will include recommendations from three general committee meetings.
In addition to the special general committee meeting at 2 p.m., general committee will meet again at 4 p.m. for a closed session where six items will be considered followed by an open session at 5:30 p.m. where council will receive a presentation of the city’s 2026 draft budget.
Monday evening’s city council meeting agenda includes registered delegations, recommendations from the October 20 general committee meeting, recommendations from the October 27 general committee meeting (including confirmation of the official plan amendment for strategic growth area policies and a community planning permit system), and recommendations from the 4 p.m. closed general committee meeting.
Council meetings are streamed live at www.peterborough.ca.
