OTTAWA CITIZEN, by Taylor Blewett
Planning committee will decide Monday whether to endorse The Ottawa Hospital’s master site plan for its next-generation Civic campus on the eastern corner of the Central Experimental Farm after spending hours Friday listening to unanimous support for the facility in principle, but continued division over its location and site features.
Committee co-chair Scott Moffatt began Friday’s joint planning and built heritage sub-committee meeting by explaining to those in attendance that “arguments about site selection” would fall outside its scope and that “our authority is limited to matters of municipal interest in site design and layout.”
Still, Moffatt said, he knew people would talk about the location of the hospital and wouldn’t be cutting off public delegates. He was certainly correct.
More than 50 people signed up to address the meeting, and the opinions could generally be sorted into three categories.
TOH staff, leadership, patients, and others affiliated with the hospital argued the need for the new Civic, without delay, offering explicit or implied endorsement of the proposed site and the plan for it.
“We’ve already gone (past) the best-before date for this hospital,” Jeff Turnbull, former TOH chief of staff and medical director of Ottawa Inner City Health, said of the nearly 100-year-old Civic.
“I would encourage all the members of this committee to think about what is the most expedient way to move ahead to a new, high-quality health care system,” he said, sharing his belief that the proposed site would provide “sufficient access and high-quality care” and allow for recruitment of top-notch trainees and health-care providers.
Lead architect Jason-Emery Groen called it “a transformational opportunity at the intersection of city-building and integration into the natural realm to foster state-of-the-art care and research.”
With its grand opening slated for 2028, the new Civic would be developed in phases on a site that council approved for rezoning in 2018. At the time, a “holding provision” was established to require approval by planning committee and council of a master plan for the site, as well as transportation, cultural heritage and servicing (i.e. water, sanitary and stormwater) studies.
In their report, city staff recommended endorsing the master plan and lifting the holding provision, concluding the plan demonstrated that transportation, parking, LRT access, cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, built heritage and other matters “have been thoughtfully considered and designed for,” with some components needing further fine-tuning. The hospital would have to bring forward site plan control applications as it moves through the project’s various phases.
Others delegates paid no heed to Moffatt’s guidance and urged city politicians to consider an alternative Civic hospital location rather than the 50-acre parcel bordered by Carling Avenue to the north and Prince of Wales Drive to the east, offered up by the federal Liberal government in 2016.
The option most speakers suggested instead was a site previously endorsed by the National Capital Commission at Tunney’s Pasture, which resident Elizabeth O’Driscoll described as “a wasteland of asphalt and concrete,” compared to the Central Experimental Farm site’s “precious trees and greenspace.”
The hospital board rejected Tunney’s in 2016, after which politicians from all three levels of government presented the farm site, that same week, as the best place for a new hospital.
This was after the previous Conservative government promised Central Experimental Farm research fields, across from the current hospital, for the new Civic, stirring controversy and their Liberal successors to task the National Capital Commission with a site review, producing the Tunney’s recommendation.
Capital Ward Coun. Shawn Menard said Friday that the way the site decision had been made was part of “this cynicism that we’re seeing here today about the current site plan, and where there’s a lack of trust.”
Some citizens raised concerns around the project price tag, questioning whether committee members had a sense for the up-to-date cost of the master plan they’d be voting on, and where the $700-million local contribution for the project would come from.
TOH executive vice-president and chief planning and development officer Joanne Read confirmed their confidence in the previously publicized $2.8-billion price tag for design and construction and said the local share would be made up mainly of fundraising. As for any share TOH is hoping the city will contribute, “I will leave it to the city to come back and give us their thoughts on that particular aspect,” Read said.
Between effusive enthusiasm and impassioned criticism were calls Friday to pause the march of the Civic development process to consider concerns about plans for the hospital, as they exist now, and those prepared for the project to go ahead, but wanting such concerns kept in mind.
“A new Civic campus at Dow’s Lake, a major development on federal lands, beside the Dominion Arboretum, on a national historic site and next to Ontario’s only UNESCO World Heritage Site … we need to be sure that we measure twice and cut once,” said Joseph Federico, a member of the Dow’s Lake Residents Association.
Traffic impacts, the possibility of burying the proposed parking garage and the hospital’s proposed footprint were among those matters committee members were urged to consider.
A number of motions will be discussed Monday, when planning committee reconvenes for a vote on the master plan. Coun. Riley Brockington is proposing the mayor, on behalf of council, write to federal officials to request legislation to ensure long-term protection of the rest of the Central Experimental Farm.
Coun. Jeff Leiper wants a neighbourhood traffic study required from the hospital and funding for any mitigations identified in the study that are recommended by the city. He’s also putting forward motions related to tree planting and onsite cycling infrastructure.
Menard is looking to get staff to encourage TOH to set up a community transportation advisory group, as well as to work with the hospital to reduce on-site surface parking and to ensure the internal road network is capable of accommodating local transit services.
Council is expected to vote on the master site plan on Oct. 13.