This Regina heritage home may face the wrecking ball

Regina community fights to save heritage home WATCH: Marc Smith reports on why community members don’t want this heritage home to go under the wrecking ball.

Regina — A local developer has applied to the City of Regina to demolish a property on the city’s heritage inventory list.

Heritage advocates are pushing to save the home from the wrecking ball.

Jeannie Mah has lived on Angus Cres. for 30 years. When she goes past the home, she has always been intrigued by the Bagshaw residence.

"There isn’t another house like this on the crescents," Mah said. "The other houses, some of them are the same, some of them repeat, there’s little ones, there’s big ones, but there isn’t one quite like this one."

The home was built in 1907 for prominent Regina lawyer Frederick Bagshaw by acclaimed architect Frederick Clemesha.

Bagshaw lived in the residence for 50 years.

"This house is a very significant house to the neighbourhood and to the city of Regina," Heritage Regina President Jackie Schmidt said.

The home is one of 227 properties currently on the heritage inventory list.

Schmidt said preserving the streetscape on the crescent is important.

"If you think about the jellybean houses in St. John’s, N.L., if we take one of these out, even if we put a new infill in here, it’s not going to look the same," she said.

Crawford Homes purchased the property with plans to demolish the 107-year-old home and build a 1,900-square-foot bungalow in its place.

The company declined to comment further for this story.

"Even if you build a house that’s similar to this, it’s still not the same vintage," Schmidt said.

The City of Regina’s heritage inventory policy required the demolition application to be put on hold for 60 days to allow city council to consider the property’s heritage significance.

"In this case, administration determined that while the property does have heritage value, it was not at the level of significance to warrant us proceeding with a recommendation to designate without consent of the property owner," said Emmaline Hill, manager of social and cultural development with the City of Regina.

City Council will hear from delegates on Wednesday about the property. They will vote on whether to accept the Planning Commission’s recommendation to allow the home to be demolished.