Options open on new site of Civic
Forum to hear of alternatives to farm location
The Ottawa Hospital and the National Capital Commission will finally meet the public to talk about a new Civic hospital in a few weeks, 15 months after announcing plans to place the new complex on Central Experimental Farm land.
Earlier plans to discuss design and landscaping details of the new campus will likely be scrapped in what appears to be a rapidly evolving rethink of the proposed superhospital.
In an interview with the Citizen on Wednesday, chief executive Dr. Jack Kitts acknowledged the hospital is, in part, responding to public pressure to take a second look at plans for a new campus on 60 acres of farm lands across Carling Avenue from the existing institution.
“Those are discussions that have to take place so we don’t have a city that is divided between a farm and a hospital,” he said. “We should have a city that rallies behind both, because both are integral and central to the whole brand and definition of what Ottawa is.”
Plans to transfer experimental-farm land for the hospital, which were announced by Kitts and former Conservative MP John Baird on Nov. 3, 2014, took most people by surprise and have been the source of growing controversy and concern since.
Most recently, Ottawa Centre MP and Environment Minister Catherine McKenna weighed in, saying “all possible options” needed to be looked at.
That is what the hospital is now doing, Kitts said. Four options are being considered: the status quo; a different configuration on the same site that allows some farm research to continue; Tunney’s Pasture; and the site of the demolished Sir John Carling building near Carling at the east end of the experimental farm.
The re-evaluation is just beginning. Kitts said hospital officials haven’t sat down with anyone to talk about whether a hospital would fit into any redevelopment plans for Tunney’s Pasture, nor have they talked to scientists and officials at Agriculture Canada about whether it is possible to reconfigure a hospital on the experimental farm that would allow research to continue. It previously assessed the Sir John Carling site, but Kitts said that was in 2007 and it deserves another look.
Among changes since the hospital determined a rebuild wasn’t possible on its existing site and that it would need to find new land is that the federal government wants to redevelop Tunney’s, and the LRT makes it more attractive.
Kitts also noted that in 2007, when the hospital first looked around for land, it thought the city would grow more toward the south and west. Since then, there has been more growth downtown, and the hospital wants to be close to the city’s core. He said LeBreton Flats, the subject of a NCC design competition, was never considered because it wasn’t available at the time.
Officials will meet the public on March 7 to talk about the hospital, the first public meeting since plans to transfer farm land to the hospital were announced. National Capital Commission officials were, until recently, saying the public would be asked to comment on landscaping and hospital design, but not location.
On Wednesday, Kitts said the public meeting would be an information session.
“I think it is important for everyone in Ottawa to be on the same page in terms of understanding why we need a new hospital, how important it is to us to have, and why the location of that hospital is so critical to the future health care of not only our generation but gen- erations to come.”
Kitts said public consultations weren’t held before the experimental farm site was announced because the hospital didn’t have the land and didn’t have official permission to build a new hospital.
Last fall, the Champlain LHIN approved the hospital’s plans to build on a new site, although CEO Chantale LeClerc said in a statement Wednesday that approval was simply to build on undeveloped land in central Ottawa. “In other words, we would be open to any feasible site in central Ottawa.”
Kitts said the hospital has since learned of “unintended consequences of the current site” — a reference to the destruction of historic agricultural research.
He said the hospital agreed to reconfigure the proposed site of the hospital in an effort to avoid affecting some research on the site. He said he would like to talk to research officials to see if there is some way to lessen the impact further by moving the hospital east.
Asked if he has any regrets about the way plans for a new hospital have been handled so far, Kitts said:
“I regret that what should be a really positive, good-news story for Ottawa for health care and science that we couldn’t find a way to ensure that this became a good-news story for everybody. I am committed to working with the leadership at the farm and researchers to find a way to make this a really, really proud thing for the citizens of Ottawa.”