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National Capital Commission staff have recommended Tunney’s Pasture as the site of a new Civic hospital, throwing a curveball into the already politicized process.
The chosen site, close to the new LRT line, will likely take many by surprise, including hospital officials, who had ranked Tunney’s among the least desirable of available sites.
Hospital officials’ preferred location had been 60 acres on Ottawa’s Central Experimental Farm across Carling Avenue from the current structure.
Once approved by the NCC board, which was meeting Thursday morning and expected to address the file, the recommendation will be submitted to Mélanie Joly, the minister of Canadian Heritage, for the government’s decision.
Thursday’s decision comes two years after the former Conservative government agreed to allow a replacement for the aging Civic hospital on the Central Experimental Farm near Carling Avenue, an announcement made without public consultation.
The plan was immediately controversial, with groups mobilizing to protect the farm, which is a designated National Historic Site. Scientists from around the world, including those who work with Agricultural Canada on soil experiments at the farm, wrote to the Conservative government expressing alarm at plans to build on the historic agriculture research fields.
When the Liberals were elected last year, they said they would revisit the issue with a more transparent process for selecting a hospital site. Eventually, the NCC was tasked with reviewing a dozen sites that had already been considered by the hospital, including three on the Central Experimental Farm along Carling Avenue and Tunney’s Pasture. As part of the process, public consultations were held and groups consulted.
Not only was Tunney’s Pasture — home to numerous federal government buildings — a dark horse in the selection process, but the NCC has now put forward a site that is smaller than the hospital asked for — 50 rather than 60 acres. Hospital officials have long said they need 60 acres to accommodate the new hospital, road access, parking and future growth.
The Ottawa Hospital had raised concerns about Tunney’s Pasture as a potential location for a new super hospital in a report written earlier this year. Among its concerns were worse access for ambulances from Highway 417 than other proposed sites and the cost of demolishing buildings and preparing the site. Eight buildings on the site would have to be demolished for a hospital, according to hospital’s assessment.
“Most patients requiring acute trauma care will not travel via light rail,” the report said.
The Ottawa Hospital also suggested “road work” would be required to support increased traffic on the already clogged roads leading to and from Tunney’s. It also said the capital cost would be significantly higher than for other options because of building demolition needed, and that the federal government should absorb that cost.
Tunney’s is 121 acres of government buildings where 10,000 public servants go to work each day.
Most of the buildings are reaching their best-before dates, which is why Public Services and Procurement Canada has a development strategy in the works for the land. The master plan calls for a transformation of the site to include offices as well as retail, residential and parks. The 25-year plan includes the addition of between 800 and 1,000 residential units and the doubling of federal employees to 20,000. It is not known how a hospital would affect those plans.
Carleton Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre has dismissed the NCC process as a waste of time that is delaying construction of a badly needed new hospital and pushing Ottawa further down the province’s list of priority sites. Numerous Ontario communities are vying for provincial dollars to build new hospitals.
Polievre was a supporter of putting the hospital on the original site, the Experimental Farm along Carling. He has questioned why experiments on that site, including Field No. 1 where research contributed to the Nobel Peace Prize, could not simply be moved to another field.
In answer to a question about the site tabled last week, federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna gave a hint about the government’s views on replacing research fields with a hospital.
“The long-term research plots on Field 1 at the Central Experimental Farm contain irreplaceable information on crop yields, soil health and climate change, which is of interest to national and international scientists. The real cost of cancelling the studies on Field 1 would be the loss of the scientific data and the effects of that loss on a variety of other research projects, currently using this data, both in Canada and internationally.”
Officials with Agriculture Canada said leaving the farm intact and putting the hospital elsewhere would be the best outcome “from a research and heritage perspective.”
In addition to Tunney’s Pasture and three sites on the Farm along Carling Avenue, the NCC looked at another site on farm land near Baseline and Merivale roads, one near Lincoln Fields, the Booth Street complex, two sites on West Hunt Club road near Highway 416, one on Woodroffe near Hunt Club and the Merivale Road-Woodroffe Avenue corridor and the site of the current Civic.
epayne@postmedia.com
查看原文...
The chosen site, close to the new LRT line, will likely take many by surprise, including hospital officials, who had ranked Tunney’s among the least desirable of available sites.
Hospital officials’ preferred location had been 60 acres on Ottawa’s Central Experimental Farm across Carling Avenue from the current structure.
Once approved by the NCC board, which was meeting Thursday morning and expected to address the file, the recommendation will be submitted to Mélanie Joly, the minister of Canadian Heritage, for the government’s decision.
Thursday’s decision comes two years after the former Conservative government agreed to allow a replacement for the aging Civic hospital on the Central Experimental Farm near Carling Avenue, an announcement made without public consultation.
The plan was immediately controversial, with groups mobilizing to protect the farm, which is a designated National Historic Site. Scientists from around the world, including those who work with Agricultural Canada on soil experiments at the farm, wrote to the Conservative government expressing alarm at plans to build on the historic agriculture research fields.
When the Liberals were elected last year, they said they would revisit the issue with a more transparent process for selecting a hospital site. Eventually, the NCC was tasked with reviewing a dozen sites that had already been considered by the hospital, including three on the Central Experimental Farm along Carling Avenue and Tunney’s Pasture. As part of the process, public consultations were held and groups consulted.
Not only was Tunney’s Pasture — home to numerous federal government buildings — a dark horse in the selection process, but the NCC has now put forward a site that is smaller than the hospital asked for — 50 rather than 60 acres. Hospital officials have long said they need 60 acres to accommodate the new hospital, road access, parking and future growth.
The Ottawa Hospital had raised concerns about Tunney’s Pasture as a potential location for a new super hospital in a report written earlier this year. Among its concerns were worse access for ambulances from Highway 417 than other proposed sites and the cost of demolishing buildings and preparing the site. Eight buildings on the site would have to be demolished for a hospital, according to hospital’s assessment.
“Most patients requiring acute trauma care will not travel via light rail,” the report said.
The Ottawa Hospital also suggested “road work” would be required to support increased traffic on the already clogged roads leading to and from Tunney’s. It also said the capital cost would be significantly higher than for other options because of building demolition needed, and that the federal government should absorb that cost.
Tunney’s is 121 acres of government buildings where 10,000 public servants go to work each day.
Most of the buildings are reaching their best-before dates, which is why Public Services and Procurement Canada has a development strategy in the works for the land. The master plan calls for a transformation of the site to include offices as well as retail, residential and parks. The 25-year plan includes the addition of between 800 and 1,000 residential units and the doubling of federal employees to 20,000. It is not known how a hospital would affect those plans.
Carleton Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre has dismissed the NCC process as a waste of time that is delaying construction of a badly needed new hospital and pushing Ottawa further down the province’s list of priority sites. Numerous Ontario communities are vying for provincial dollars to build new hospitals.
Polievre was a supporter of putting the hospital on the original site, the Experimental Farm along Carling. He has questioned why experiments on that site, including Field No. 1 where research contributed to the Nobel Peace Prize, could not simply be moved to another field.
In answer to a question about the site tabled last week, federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna gave a hint about the government’s views on replacing research fields with a hospital.
“The long-term research plots on Field 1 at the Central Experimental Farm contain irreplaceable information on crop yields, soil health and climate change, which is of interest to national and international scientists. The real cost of cancelling the studies on Field 1 would be the loss of the scientific data and the effects of that loss on a variety of other research projects, currently using this data, both in Canada and internationally.”
Officials with Agriculture Canada said leaving the farm intact and putting the hospital elsewhere would be the best outcome “from a research and heritage perspective.”
In addition to Tunney’s Pasture and three sites on the Farm along Carling Avenue, the NCC looked at another site on farm land near Baseline and Merivale roads, one near Lincoln Fields, the Booth Street complex, two sites on West Hunt Club road near Highway 416, one on Woodroffe near Hunt Club and the Merivale Road-Woodroffe Avenue corridor and the site of the current Civic.
epayne@postmedia.com
查看原文...
