A petition is demanding action from the city and the owner of the Somerset House to solve the legal issues that keeps the future of the decrepit heritage building uncertain.
Jeff Morrison, a Centretown resident, started the online petition in late September on the website change.org.
“This situation has been allowed to go on for far too long,” he says. “That building collapsed five years ago. It is a huge eyesore, it’s deteriorating, and yet it’s a perfect spot of prime real estate in Centretown,” he says. “The purpose of the petition is to give people an outlet to make their views known; that this situation is just really unacceptable.”
The Somerset House saga started in November 2007 when part of the building collapsed during renovation work. The saga has been punctuated by lawsuits. The city first took the owner, Tony Shahrasebi, to court, and the owner then counter-sued the city.
After five years of inactivity, the petition is demanding an end to the tale — 234 people had signed the petition by Wednesday.
The petition calls for the city and the owner to find a solution to the legal struggles surrounding the Somerset House and either develop a building along with the remaining facade or tear it down.
Morrison says the first option is the better scenario, but also says there is no choice, if something new can’t be build around the remaining facade.
“The point of the petition is, it’s better to have to tear it down and put something up, than for the walls to sit there for another five years,” Morrison says.
David Flemming, past-president of Heritage Ottawa who has followed the case from the beginning, disagrees the time has come to talk about tearing the Somerset House down.
“We have a long way to go before that becomes the only solution,” Flemming says. “We certainly don’t want to see it demolished.”
From a heritage perspective, he says, the opportunity of keeping the facade would be ideal. He does, however, support the community sending the message to the city and the owner.
“It is nice to see the community getting involved,” says Flemming. “A petition with 230 names on it going to city council would be more effective than an intervention by Heritage Ottawa. We certainly support that kind of advocacy – the advocacy that comes out of the community.”
According to Morrison, the petition is also about communicating frustration and he says both the city and the owner are “holding the residents hostage” by not keeping the community informed about the case.
“There has not been a lot of communication from either side,” says Morrison. “That’s another part of the community’s frustration – we don’t know where in the process we are at.”
Neither Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes or Shahrasebi responded to interview requests..