Long-term care needs approval now
Council told it must act quickly to allow Omni Quality Living to build new 256-bed facility
The municipality needs to do a lot of work over the next year to ensure that a new long-term care facility gets built on time in Campbellford, Trent Hills council was told last week.
Carrie Hayward, chair of Campbellford Memorial Hospital, and Jeff Hohenkerk, President and CEO, gave council an update on work over the past several months to plan a new hospital, but they stressed that Omni Quality Living has the most urgent need for action since it must build a new facility to replace the outmoded Burnbrae Gardens.
Burnbrae Gardens, with 40 beds, no longer meets government standards but has been kept open because Omni has been given approval to build a new 128-bed facility and expects approval to double that to 256 beds, Hohenkerk said.
Construction of the new building on the Campus of Care site on the western edge of Campbellford will take three years, Hayward said. “They need to open in 2030,” Hayward said.
“So, we have a year to get everything started,” Deputy Mayor Mike Metcalf said.
“We’re going to keep the planning staff very busy over the next short while to get everything in place,” Mayor Bob Crate said.
Jim Curle is donating 48 acres for the hospital site. He has applied for a severance for the parcel, since he will be retaining the rest of his farm.
“We hope that will be approved by June,” Hayward said, adding that she hopes the municipality refunds the cost of the severance application. That drew laughter from councillors, but no promise of a refund.
The municipality recently changed a bylaw so that smaller chunks of farmland can be severed, which is the first step in the process. Next, the land will need to be rezoned from prime agricultural to institutional to permit the new uses.
At the same time, work needs to get underway to extend water line 300 metres and wastewater line 600 metres to the site. In addition, it will be requiring electricity, natural gas and fibre-optic lines.
Councillor Rick English asked about the need to reconfigure County Road 30 at the location, suggesting the amount of work to be done “scares me a little bit.”
Hayward said preliminary discussions with the county a couple of years ago did not raise major concerns. A traffic study will need to be done so the county can determine what changes will be required.
Hohenkerk noted there is likely to be strong demand for affordable housing in Trent Hills in coming years as more workers are needed at the larger hospital, the bigger long-term care facility and at the planned nuclear station in Port Hope.
Hayward outlined the requirement for a community to raise about 20 to 30 per cent of the total cost of a new hospital. She said they expect to have a better idea of the actual cost later this year once detailed planning has narrowed what it will ask the province for approval to build.
The project is currently in early planning stages, next will be detailed planning, followed by construction. It’s hoped the new facility will be ready by 2032.
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