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10 September 2004

City Goes to Court in Effort to Preserve CPR Site

Victoria - The City of Victoria headed to court Thursday in a bid to force the Canadin Pacific Railway to do a better job of protecting the historic CPR Roundhouse near Songhees.
 
Steve Barber, the city's heritage planner, said the city has been trying for more than a decade, without success, to get the company to maintain the brick building, which has a badly damaged roof.
 
CP still uses part of the building to maintain its Dayliner passenger cars used by VIA Rail on the E&N Railway.
 
But Barber said half of the 1912 structure, regarded as one of the finest remaining roundhouses in B.C., is unused. But its significance is underlined by its designation as a national historic site by the federal government in 1992.
 
"There are very few of these examples of industrial heritage left", Barber said.
 
The case, before Supreme Court of B.C. Justice Dean Wilson, marks the first time the city has tried to enforce its heritage-building maintenance bylaw, he said.
 
The city has the backing of the provincial Attorney General Ministry which is intervening in support of the municipality's right to regulate heritage buildings.
 
Barber said the railway maintains that since the roundhouse is used as part of an operating railway, the issue falls within federal rather than municipal jurisdiction.
 
The case is expected to wrap up today with a ruling to be handed down at a later date.