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THE VOICE OF HILLS SINCE 36 PAGES SINGLE COPY GST HALTON HILLS ONTARIO WEDNESDAY JANUARY 1992 Conference Centre destroyed by fire By STEVEN The Herald The Ontario Fire Marshals Of fice is investigating the cause of a fire which destroyed the Hills Conference Centre near Speyside early FTiday According to Regional Police firefighters from hills and Milton were called to the centre located on 25 south of 15 Sideroad at Thursday evening It then took the entire night and the early hours of the morning to the fire under con Firefighters didn t leave the scene unt 1 well after morning Damage to the centre was estimated at by Ontario Government ire Marshall Hon Chalmers The cause of the fire is still unknown Between and 50 firefighters were called to the scene to help put out the fire Thecentre which is often used as an executive conference meeting area is the place of employment and residence of Cameron Sasyaumaker who was out for diner in Acton at the time the fire broke out Mr Sasyaumaker explained when he left the centre the fire in the dining room fireplace was dying down According to police upon initial investigation F ire Marshall Chalmers believed arson was a possible cause of the fire because of two one- gallon gas cans found by the rear door The cans were ding up with the caps on beside the rear stairwav of the house Further investigation showed son was an unlikely cause because it was learned that the cans were filled with diesal fuel purchased by Mr Sasyaumaker a week ago and that the fuel had not been thrown around It is believed that the fire started somewhere between the dining room fireplace and a Christmas tree in the same room where the extent of damage is most severe According to police F ire Marshall Chalmers said embers from the fire could have ignited the rug or that the lights on the Christmas tree could have ignited the tree According to Hills Fire Prevention Officer Dave Ford upon arrival at the centre firefighters were unable to gain en try to the building took four water tankers from Acton to ex tinguish the flames He explained heavy fog Thursday evening along with road con ditions made their task more ficult Road crews were called into for assistance A strong smell of smoke still existed by late Friday afternoon The roof of the centre was com pleteiy gone and a few walls with extensive damage remained standing The centre is owned by Waterloo resident who purchased the property which in eludes the main building and acres of land in February for The insurance claim on the building is The property excluding the centre is valued at 1 million Mr was on the scene after the initial investigation hut would not comment on the centre historv or his plans relating to the The Towns yearend 650000 windfall By BEN DUMMETT The Herald While the closure of several local businesses indicates Halton Hills has been hard hit by the recession the high level of construction tells another story According to statistics issued by the Town Building Department a total of building permits were issued locally last year adding close to 1 million to the Town s coffers Considered another way builders spent a total of million in 1991 on construction in Hills Not bad considering the Town only issued just under 000 th of building permits during 1990 Commenting on the high level of construction activity Henry Tse Town Building Code and Bylaw En Director said Friday Hills has been very for tunate The Town hired Mr Tse late last year to head up the newly formed Building Code and Bylaw En forcement Department The new department is meant to streamline the Town various enforcement responsibilities Mr Tse was unable to give a definitive reason explaining why the Town experienced a high level of construction activity last year He did speculate however part of the reason may have been because high Torontoarea land prices in 1988 forced developers to look elsewhere for developable land A willingness by local trades people to work at a rate may have been another reason for developers willingness to built in the area Mr offered He t expect his department to issue the same total of building permits this year as were issued 1991 However Mr Tse is op timistic construction acmit will be higher in than that of two years ago At the end of just under worth of building permits had been issued This figure was approximately short from what the Town had originally projected for that year Most building permits issued last year were for residential develop ment Two of the largest developments built last year included the Law Development project on River Drive in Georgetown and the further expansion of Homes development in Georgetown South Law Development is also ex pected to be a major purchaser of construction permits this year Town Planning Director Ian Keith said the Law Development group is expected to build more than a 100 homes off of Trafalgar Road in Mr Keith said construction will Continued on page AN INSIDE LOOK Classified 17 19 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