Ambitious plan

Charlottetown council sends process of replacing Hillsborough Hospital to public consultation phase

Plans for a new Hillsborough Hospital in Charlottetown have taken a step forward.

City council recently gave the green light to send the rezoning process to the public consultation phase.

It’s an ambitious plan that not only involves building a new two-storey mental health and addiction acute care facility but creating a campus that will take close to 100 acres of space.

“It’s a great project for the city, for the province (and) for mental health on Prince Edward Island,’’ said Mayor Philip Brown.

There are four components to this plan that include public social safety and structural housing, social housing and extended care housing for addiction recovery and mixeduse development that will include 10 additional buildings, which would be a mix of residential and commercial uses.

The property around Hillsborough Hospital currently includes a variety of zones, from institutional to multiuse corridor. The intent is to consolidate the property under comprehensive development area (CDA), which allows the city more opportunity to co-operate with the province in how the property is developed.

The land also contains a historical component. It’s the site of the former Falconwood Hospital. Former prime minister John A. Macdonald recovered there in 1870 following a gallstone attack.

The plan is also to transform the site from a stigmatized institutional parcel of land to a more communityintegrated, interconnected, destigmatized campus, which will include the use of trails

that run parallel to Murchison Lane, the street that runs by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital all the way down to Acadian Drive.

The city’s planning department does have one concern with the current plan. The parking lot and loading bays for the new mental health and addictions facility face the water. City planners would like all waterfront properties facing the water for esthetic purposes.

However, Brown cautioned the project is only at the conceptual phase and discussion will be part of a future public meeting.

Coun. Terry Bernard recently raised concerns about public meetings.

Under current health restrictions, it’s almost impossible to have a public meeting of any significant size.

Brown suggested using Cody Banks Arena as a meeting location, surmising the city could place 50 chairs inside the arena and space them six feet apart. Speakers at the meeting would use a separate entrance and exit from the public. The meeting would also be streamed online.

The public meeting will be held once the city can figure out how to host the meeting while following the health guidelines.The government announced last year it wants to expedite a five-year, $100-million plan to improve mental health.