Fire erupts at former rooming house — again

You’re reading the March 7, 2024 edition of the Peterborough Currents email newsletter. To receive our email newsletters straight to your inbox, sign up here.

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Good morning and welcome to the Peterborough Currents newsletter.

We often have conversations at Currents about how to approach news stories that are close to us. My colleague Brett and I are deeply involved in the community, and that sometimes means we find ourselves involved in the news.

That happened this week, when I was serving a free community meal at Confederation Park and a security guard contracted by the city approached me and said we had to leave because we didn’t have a permit. He said he’d call the police if we didn’t leave. In the end, the guard gave us an hour to comply, and that was enough time to serve the meal.

I thought about covering the story for Currents. But I felt a little too close to it. So I was relieved when a reporter from KawarthaNOW reached out for an interview instead. They wrote a story about the situation. I’m grateful that there is a diverse news media ecosystem in Peterborough.

Okay, now onto our newsletter for this week. We’ll cover: 

• The “suspicious” fire at a former Water Street rooming house
• Peterborough’s warmest winter ever
• Neighbourhood rinks are closing over liability risks
• And more

Let’s get to it.

Fire erupts at former rooming house — again

A fire deemed “suspicious” by police broke out at a former rooming house on Water Street on Tuesday evening. By the time first responders arrived around 8:20 p.m., flames were already pouring out of two of the building’s windows. Firefighters spent the next several hours taming the fire.

The building “was believed to be vacant/abandoned and no injuries have been reported to us,”  a Peterborough Police spokesperson told Currents by email Wednesday morning.

This isn’t the first fire at 557 Water Street. In 2019, when the building was still in use as a rooming house, a fire sent two people to hospital and displaced other occupants, according to Global News Peterborough. 

Since then, the building has been boarded up.

When the rooming house was in operation, first responders were called to the building on several occasions for weapons related offences, including a stabbing and shooting, according to KawarthaNOW.

“It was a pretty stressful building,” said Dave Tobey, who has lived nearby for over two decades.

Glen Caradus has different memories of 557 Water Street. As he stood watching the building burn, Caradus said he worked in the house around 1990, when it was a group home for adults with disabilities. He said that back then it was a “fantastic, lovely place” with “a vibrant community of people.”

“It’s sad when you see an old red brick building [burn],” Caradus said. “I’m gonna assume it’s going to be condemned after this.”

557 Water Street was built around 1903 and is “a good example of an early twentieth century estate house,” according to the city’s heritage register.

According to land registration documents obtained by Currents, 557 Water Street is owned by Aurel Dervishi, who has expressed an intention to convert the building into a four-unit dwelling through a renovation and addition.

According to the documents, Dervishi purchased the building in 2021 for $535,000 from James Hughes and Matthew Aston, who had owned it since 2013. The city granted Dervishi a conditional variance for the renovation in 2022, the documents state, but little work appears to have been done at the site since then.

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Other stories to watch

WARM WEATHER

Peterborough is experiencing its warmest winter since record-keeping began in 1867, according to an Environment Canada meteorologist.

Steven Filsfeder said Peterborough’s average mean temperature for December, January and February was minus 1.9 degrees Celsius, blowing past the previous record set in winter 2011-2012. The average mean temperature that winter was minus 2.7 degrees Celsius, he said.

“That is a new record for the region,” Filsfeder said. “This winter across the entire province has been unseasonably warm for the winter season.”

Filsfeder said both the El Niño weather pattern and climate change “had some hand in these unseasonally warm temperatures,” but added that an attribution study would need to be done to determine “just how much of a role climate change played in these temperatures we’ve seen.”

RAISES FOR POLICE

The Peterborough Police Services Board and the Peterborough Police Association announced the “successful conclusion” of contract negotiations and the ratification of new collective agreements for members of the force this week. As part of the new agreements, police officers will receive raises totalling 16% over the next five years. PPA president Jeff Chartier said the new deal was “reflective of parity with our comparators.” But some citizens who spoke with Global News Peterborough questioned whether police should be given a raise that big. City council granted the Peterborough Police a 15.3% budget increase for 2024, driving up the annual property tax bill for the median household by over $100.

LIBRARY BRANCH NAMING RIGHTS

The city is looking to sell the naming rights to Peterborough’s new public library branch for roughly $100,000 to $150,000 over 10 years, the city’s corporate sponsorship coordinator told the library board Tuesday night. Scott Elliott said the city has an “expectation of revenue” from the branch and that the money will go toward completing the new Miskin Law Community Complex, where it will be located. Community services commissioner Sheldon Laidman acknowledged that it would be “unique” to have a public library named after a corporation and said he understands why there might be some “uncomfortableness” with the idea. The board considered asking city council to allow it to choose the branch’s name in exchange for offsetting the lost sponsorship revenue. But some board members objected to using library funds for that purpose, saying it would mean less money for books and programs. The board instead passed a motion saying it wants the chance to review any sponsorship proposals before they’re approved by council.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY EVENTS

The Kawartha World Issues Centre (KWIC) and Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre (KSAC) are hosting two events tomorrow to celebrate International Women’s Day. At 12:00 p.m., there will be a rally and march starting at the Peterborough Square Courtyard. At 5:00 p.m., there will be a community event at the Peterborough Public Library. For more information, including a list of guests and speakers, click here.

MEASLES

Peterborough Public Health is “strongly urging” people to make sure they are vaccinated against measles, after five cases of the highly-contagious virus were reported in Ontario over the past two weeks. Children and pregnant people who are not vaccinated are at the highest risk for a measles infection, which can be deadly for those who are not protected, according to Peterborough’s medical officer of health. “For those travelling this time of year, we are urging residents to avoid bringing home measles as their souvenir,” said Dr. Thomas Piggott in a new release.

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