Repairs will come for an historic stone wall at the former Ontario Reformatory that was damaged last summer, but no funding has been committed and there’s no timeline for the work to be completed.
That’s the response sent to city council by the president of asset management for Infrastructure Ontario (IO). IO manages properties on behalf of the provincial government, which owns the York Road site.
The response letter, which was publicly released by city officials on Friday, follows a unanimously approved motion in September that called on the province to repair the damaged wall.
“Repairs to this structure are now identified within IO’s province-wide deferred maintenance program,” wrote Jane Domenico. “Every identified project is reviewed annually and validated against specific criteria including health and safety and code compliance.”
Sometime overnight between Aug. 23 and 24, a section of the field wall lining the driveway to the main building was damaged, with large rocks strewn about the area.
The wall was built by reformatory inmates around 1920 and is a designated heritage feature under the Ontario Heritage Act. This particular section of the wall may have been built later.
The cause of the field wall damage remains unclear, but an IO spokesperson previously pointed to erosion as the source. Others, including several people who frequent the former jail property, have suggested to GuelphToday the damage is the result of vandalism.
Domenico’s letter went on to explain the wall repairs will be considered regularly through IO’s priority-setting process, which includes consideration of the Crown agency’s “limited funding.”