The old St. Vital Church has gotten another reprieve, at least for the time being.
On Monday, Battleford town council voted to defer de-designation of the century-old church’s heritage status.
Council had been set to vote on a bylaw that would have repealed its municipal heritage property status, a step toward its possible demolition.
But the town had received four official letters in opposition to the proposed bylaw, which was more than enough to stop the bylaw process from going to a vote that evening.
The main discussion Monday was on next steps in the process. The town’s chief administrative officer, John Enns-Wind, explained the next step is for the town to ask the Heritage Branch to mediate between the town and the objectors to see if a solution could be found which would drop the objections.
Failing that, said Enns-Wind, they would go to the Heritage Board and the objectors would present their side, and the town their own side. The board would then adjourn and render a decision.
At that point, said Enns-Wind, “if council agrees with the decision, we would support the decision and carry it out. If council disagrees with the decision, council can still decide to vote and do what they want. But these are steps that we have to go through and we are doing our best to ensure we follow the proper procedure and ensure the community is given every opportunity to save the old church.”
As for timelines, Enns-Wind said the mediation should take place in about a month, because there is only a handful of people involved.
He was not able to obtain a timeline for the Heritage Board process, however. A number of factors are involved, as the whole board would have to come to Battleford for a public meeting and it would depend on how many people would be gathered, as well as whether technology would be allowed at that meeting.
In general, there was support from council for deferring the de-designation and going ahead with the process outlined, and giving the objectors every chance to save the church.
“I think democracy is showing its true form with this one,” said Mayor Ames Leslie. The mayor welcomed the additional time to go through the proper channels to find a solution that would save the church
But Leslie did point out that in the two years of discussions on the future of St. Vital Church, “I still haven’t found anybody who can come forth who can say how this can be paid for without using taxpayer dollars, because the majority of this community has said they do not want taxpayers dollars used for this project.”
“I don’t want to see this church go away either, but we need to find a way, so that we can find a solution that is not taxpayer’s dollars being used to save this project,” said Leslie.
