Seven homes slated for John Rebstock property, no heritage conditions

The Ontario Land Tribunal approved seven townhouses on May 11 where John Rebstock’s Crystal Beach house stood, but Fort Erie cannot require any recognition or remembrance of him.

Crystal Ridge Homes has not yet applied for a building permit at 3957 Rebstock Road, the town told Fort Erie Radio on August 21, but the Planning Act bars council from requiring any memorial or plaque of Rebstock, who founded Crystal Beach Park in 1888, as a condition of the zoning approval.

At a February 11 meeting of the Museum and Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee, which advises the town on local history, a member asked that the town consider a memorial to Rebstock at the site because the property had been his, according to minutes the town cited.

The town also said, in a multi-department email response to Fort Erie Radio, that it had no power to stop the house from being demolished in 2023, even though the heritage committee had recommended protecting it a year earlier.

“The town did not have the heritage authority available under the Ontario Heritage Act to require retention of the building or prevent its demolition,” the town said.

In 2022, the heritage committee evaluated the house under the town’s point system for historic properties and ranked it in the highest category, “of major significance and importance and worthy of designation,” because it had belonged to Rebstock and was built in the American Four-Square style.

“Designation” is a legal status that bars an owner from demolishing a building without town permission. The committee asked the town to add the house to its heritage list as a first step.

The town said staff wrote to the owner after that evaluation, offering to explain the designation process and its benefits, but never heard back.

Without the owner’s support, the house was never designated or placed on the heritage list, which meant the town’s building department could issue a demolition permit in June 2023 without consulting the heritage committee. By November, an inspection confirmed the house was demolished.

Jessica Steffler, curator at Fort Erie Museum Services, told Fort Erie Radio the demolished house was built in 1921 after an earlier house owned by Rebstock on the land burned in 1920.

Rebstock paid $8,500 for the 150-acre farm on Point Abino Bay in June 1887, according to William E. Kae’s 2011 book ‘Crystal Beach Park: A Century of Screams,’ which Steffler cited.

Museum staff photographed the exterior in 2023, weeks before demolition.

The townhouses only reached the tribunal because council and the developer disagreed over a single unit, and the town gave that unit up before the hearing.

Crystal Ridge Homes had already cut its plan from eight units to seven after neighbours warned in May 2025 that more hard surfaces would worsen flooding on their street, and town planning staff recommended approval of seven.

Council instead passed a bylaw on August 11, 2025 capping the site at six. Councillor Nick Dubanow voted against the cap, correctly warning the town would struggle to defend it on appeal.

The company appealed, and the Ontario Land Tribunal ordered the town to rewrite its bylaw. The seven townhouses can rise no more than two storeys, with no more than four units in a row.

Any old house in Fort Erie that is not on the heritage list can be demolished the same way, without a heritage review.

Crystal Ridge Homes needs permits from Fort Erie’s building department and Infrastructure Services before construction can start. The town said it does not know when that will be.

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