-i-ime nl nu wEnNESDAY FEBRUARY 18, 1987, PAGE 5 VVZIIIDZ L~L~J~jA.jL ~ "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." • Thomas Jefferson Advise I TOWN PLANNING: PART V - HEiTaIun rnaem.1- - After several decades of debate and gradual deterioration, it is a relief that downtown Whitby has finally accepted that its future lies in the exploitation of its unique historic character. Following the lead of numerous other municipalities, the downtown merchants are fixing and painting their buildings to bring out and enhance their character. The BIA has become an active force and last year per suaded Heritage Canada to include Whitby in its select group of Main Street communities. For its part the Town has developed a proposed secondary plan which recognizes the importance of the historie commercial buildingsedowntown and seeks to preserve them by iimiting building heights aiong those few streets to three storeys. However, the plan does nothing to protect the surrounding residential streets which are equally historie and indeed the seconda-y plan proposes eight-storey limits through much of these stable residential areas. Most people outside the "heritage movement" think of preservation in terms of individual buildings, but the character of a building is largely determined by its surroundings. Trafalgar Castle was built as an estate home and still occupies a large sprawling piece of real estate at the crest of a hill overlooking the surroun- ding countryside. It has been expanded several times through the years but each time, the additions have been of compatible scale and materials. If, however, the school were to put up a glass and steel ten-storey addition, the character of the Castle would be destroyed. I have used Trafalgar Castle as an example only because it is a building wich most readers will recognize. (For newcomers té Town, it stands at the east end of Gilbert St.) However, the same thing is true of all buildings - their character is dependent on the scale and nature of their surroundings. The downtown secondary plan in its last draft recognized the existence of in- dividual (designated) buildings which were protected to a degree by the Ontario Heritage Act, but nothing was proposed to protect the scale of their neigh- borhoods, mndeed preciseiy the opposite. In previous articles in this series, I have suggested that the easiest way to provide a good measure of protection to these areas is a two-storey height limit. It is easiest because it is a simple recognition of the status quo and should meet with little opposition. The only people likely to oppose it are the land speculators who are the areas'worst enemies, but even they can realize an excellent return on investment if they stress quality rather than size. Official plans and zoning bylaws are designed to give a measure of control on a community's development not as a restrictive process but rather one that en- sures the protection of existing property rights and if necessary a gradual and controlled- transition to new uses. Whitby's existing official plan and zoning bylaws give no such protection to the downtown area and the proposed secondary plan amendments only marginally reduce the incentive to tear the whole works down. The other way to ensure preservation of the older sections of Town is to create a heritage district under the Ontario Heritage Act. This gives the municipality a high degree of control over what can and cannot be built, what can be demolished and how renovations are to be carried out. This control should not be regarded as restrictive but rather, protective instead. Nevertheless, because of this element of control, district designation is bound to be a lot more controversial and hence a lot longer coming. The creation ofa heritage district for the commercial core area by itself is un- der consideration but at this point, the residential areas, which are so much a part of the overall character of downtown, are not being included. Heritage districts have been created in many other communities both large and small to preserve the best of what has made them what they are. Of these, none bas embraced the concept as wholebeartedly as Ottawa where there are now hundreds of city blocks protected as part of several designated districts with more to come. (Among others, there is a proposai to make the entire Village of Rockliffe Park, an exclusive community surrounded by Ottawa into a heritage district.) The areas that have been preserved are as diverse as tbe Sandy Hill residential area where many senior bureaucrats built homes in the early part of the century to the Byward market area just a little East of Parliament Hill. This was one of the oldest areas of Ottawa and had become rather seedy and rundown through the years. Many of the older buildings had been or were in danger of being torn down when Heritage Ottawa persuaded the city to preserve and enhance what remained. Now it is one of the most attractive and.vibrant areas in the city - an area that has become a tourist attraction in its own right. Whitby has the same potential - in its heyday before the First World War, it was one of the classiest communities in Southern Ontario, a community that, for a while, rivalled Toronto. Most of the buildings from that period are still standing, a bit dirtier and in need of repairs but waiting like a time capsule to be discovered. Individuals have unlocked the charm of some of the older houses and shopsbut it still remains for the Town to embrace its past and take the steps to ensure it preservation. Another meeting on the downtown secondary plan is scheduled for next Wed: nesday Feb. 25 at 7:30 in the council chambers of the Town hall. These meetings are public and as I stated earlier in this series the Ontario Planning Act requires public participation in the planning process. I hope that this series has enlightened people on the issues facing the old core area of this community and the options available. Whether you agree-wit me or not, if you are interested in the future of -the area you owe it to yourseif and this community to attend the meeting and express your opinion. When individuals fail to come forward to ex- pres-their views the politicians will conclude that Joe Citizen doesn't care and may opt for the opinions of special interest groups wboever they may be and whatever they may want. and Dissent WITH OUR FEET UP By Bill Swan Reading at the Swan lousehold these days has taken on a lustre I had forgotten existed. Gone are the best-sellers, the block-busters four, five, six hundred pages in drone. Who has time for such anymore? Nowadays we are settling for the quick fix: five, six, seven, eight books in one evening. Sometimes each read two, three, more times. Munsch. Lee. Green. Scarry. Anon. Traditional. Milne. Re-cycled Seuss. Recognize them? If you do, then you have children in your life, real, live, lovely, cuddly, demanding, teddy-bear creatures with insatiable appetities for literature. And the authors I named two paragraphs ago are children's authors: the unsung heroes of modern literature. Children's authors in my mind have always shared the same stumbling block as school teachers. Few people recognize the intricate skills a good teacher brings to the job - it seems so easy, af- ter all - and everyone is an expert on education because after all, didn't we all go to school? The same with children's authors. The literature they produce reads so simply, so smoothly, so easily that the most ignorant among us assume it must be also easy to write. Nothing could be farther from the truth, of course. Bad writing: heavy, ponderous stuff, the kind that puts you to sleep on a rainy af- ternoon, writes itself. Stories that hold the attention of a wriggling three-year-old require work, skill and imagination. No audience demands more than do children. Adults will tough it out through a boring book hoping that the jacket blurb didn't lie, that there is something of interest there. Kids won't. Bore them for a sentence and whiz: they're off your knee and into the bucket-of crayons. The authors I named a few paragraphs back are among the most skilled at their craft. Robert Mun- sch, now associated with the University of Guelph, has severai books to his credit and is an inter- national sensation. One need not reinforce that he is Canadian. Dennis Lee is a Canadian man of letters who is better known for his children's work. Among these are Alligator Pie and Jelly Belly. The books, par- ticularly the latter, are likely to become classies in the field. John Green teaches writing to journalism studen- ts at Durham College (Oshawa) and has two books to his credit and more on the way. His 'Yes, There Are Tros'is frolicsome. And thoughtful enough that the Australian public school system has adop- ted. A second book, 'There's a Dragon in my Closet,' delights children from pre-schoolers to sub-teens. How do you write a book? Green savs its easy: "You just put a blank piece of paper in a typewriter and you stare at it until little drops of blood start to form on your forehead. Those of us who have tried can attest to the drops of blood. What Green and Munsch have been able to do is much more important: create something good enough to overcome the odds. Scholastic Books, publisher's of Green's books, receive hundreds of manuscripts each month. Dozens are almost, (?) good enough to publish. But Scholastic publishes only two or three titles a month. What they do publish has to compete in an international market. Too many children now grow up pronouncing the last letter of.the alphabet 'zee' to rhyme with 'vee'. Not a big thing, surely. But when children think their country's birthday is July 4, and our country's leader is the president, the danger becomes more evident. Which is why it is important for Canada to make all efforts to see that writers like Munsch and Lee and Green continue to publish works in Canada for the world. Should Brian Mulroney and his cabinet give away some of our culture in free trade pacts with the United States, it is authors like these (and all their readers) who will be the losers. 9