Faircrest Heights
 Community Association

Faircrest Heights Community Association

397 Crestview Ave, Ottawa, ON
K1H 5G7

The Hon. Dalton McGuinty 14^th March 2004

1795 Kilborn Ave.
Ottawa,
K1H 6N1

Dear Premier McGuinty,

This letter concerns the disposition of the National Defence Medical Centre (NDMC) lands. As a former long time resident and current MLA for Ottawa South, you will of course be aware that this 20 hectare (50 acre) site, owned by the Federal Government, is to be declared surplus to requirements and handed over to the Canada Lands Corporation (the Crown Corporation which handles land sales for the Federal Government), for subsequent sale to developers.

In 2003, the Ottawa City Council commissioned a Study entitled "Hospital Lands - Area Planning Study". In a May 14, 2003 letter from the city staff, the study was described as follows:

"The ultimate goal of this Consultant-prepared Study will be the completion of a strategic plan, to guide future growth of the major healthcare campus bounded by Smyth Road and Alta Vista Drive, in coordination with an integrated transportation and transit network".

The study was instituted in an attempt to address the unprecedented development that has occurred on these lands over the past five years and which currently seems unlikely to abate. In discussions at a recent open house, both the consultants retained to conduct the study agreed that the future use of the NDMC lands will be a key determinant in the probable impact on the Hospital lands development for health care in the greater Ottawa area, and for the quality of life for adjacent communities over the next few years.

Current legislation requires that public institutions deemed to have a stake in federal land that is up for disposition, have an opportunity to acquire it. In this instance it seems abundantly clear that, as the population of this city continues to grow, the Ottawa Hospital will need the NDMC lands at some point, either for additional teaching and laboratory facilities, or for long term care and related facilities requiring close proximity to a hospital. For example, we hear time and again that one of the problems with the over-stretched healthcare system is that scarce hospital beds are being occupied by people who really need long term care, but have nowhere else to go.

We are concerned that if the Hospitals (CHEO and Ottawa), as separate entities, have to make a decision as to whether or not to declare an interest in the NDMC lands, they will have to decline because they cannot point to any long term plan as to how the land would be used, or, more to the point, to any funding commitment from your government. Accordingly we feel that your Minister of Health should be involved in some meaningful way in this process. He would bring the full authority of your government to the table, with a more comprehensive vision of how these lands could be used to further the objectives of the ministry in delivering quality health care to this region – a region that is projected to grow rapidly over the next few years.

There is, and there will continue to be, heavy pressure from the big developers in the Ottawa area on governments at every level, to release land for office and residential development. We feel therefore that there is every reason to be concerned that there will be fierce opposition to the idea of the NDMC lands being held in abeyance for future use for healthcare related purposes.

An opportunity was lost when the Veterans lands in the same complex was sold off for development three years ago after the Hospitals had no option but to declare no interest in the site, because they did not have the wherewithal to make a credible case. Clearly there will be future demands for healthcare-related land adjacent to the existing Hospital facilities and we feel that it is imperative that the opportunity, presented by the availability of the NDMC site, not be overlooked.

Participation at some level by your government, as a stakeholder in the disposition of the crucially important NDMC lands, is surely nothing less than good public policy. By the same token we feel that the federal government should have the same concern and we are sending copies of this letter to John Manley the sitting MP for the area, the potential candidates who have declared in interest in replacing him in the next federal election, as well as other interested parties in the Ottawa scene.

Yours sincerely,
Faircrest Heights Community Association Executive

cc Community Associations:

Alta Vista Drive Residents
Alta Vista
Riverview
Canterbury

Mayor Chiarelli
Councillor Peter Hume
President, Ottawa Hospital
John Manley M.P. Ottawa South
Liberal Party Nominee, Ottawa South
Conservative Party Nominee, Ottawa South
New Democratic Party Nominee, Ottawa South

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Email dated January 2005 asking for a response to the attached letter from FHCA to Dalton & David McGuinty concerning the disposition of the NDMC lands, dated 14^th March 2004

Dear Premier McGuinty and David McGuinty M.P.

The following is a message in reply to one from the Ottawa City planner Brian Jardine, who conducted an Open House in connection with the City sponsored study of the Hospital Lands adjoining Smyth Road.

I point out toward the end that letters were sent to you both concerning the disposition of the National Defence Medical Centre (NDMC) lands, by two local community associations. I was the instigator of this initiative as a director of the Faircrest Heights C.A. The Riverview Park C.A. followed suit. This was in March 2004 and as I indicate below, there has been no response to date. This despite a space in every issue of the local newspaper inviting constituents to contact you with any problems or questions they may have. As far as we are concerned that has been a non-commitment on your part. I have no idea why we have not had a response, but I will put the best interpretation on it and assume that there has been some incompetency on the part of your staff. Now that you are aware of the situation, I take it that we will have the courtesy of a reply.

Regards,

Quentin Bristow.

Hi Brian Jardine,

The Open House for the Hospital Lands Area Planning Study was very well done and I was pleased to see a large and attentive audience for your presentation.

I would like to go on record with the following observations, which are intended primarily for the other recipients I am including who will receive this reply to your email.

Would the planners, consultants, designers and other participants in this study be prepared to tick off the ways in which the proposals for this site will enhance the quality of life for the existing community of voters residents and taxpayers.

For example will there be

- less traffic congestion?
- less pollution?
- less noise during the summer months?

If they cannot find any ways in which our qualilty of life will be improved by the additional development of this site, then will they list any beneficiaries (other than the people who will eventually arrive when the development is completed).

Be sure to include in that list any people or organisations who stand to benefit financially from the proposed developments.

Frankly I am not prepared to accept the stock answer that "you can't stop development". I strongly suspect it is a case of "don't want to stop it, because there are too many people either whose careers are tied to this sort of thing, or whose profits depend on it"!!!

I realise of course that the terms of reference for this study are strictly limited and are based on the inevitability of the NDMC land becoming available for development, and that none of the City staff or consultants have any control over the availability of it or any of the other land in the study area.

That said, I think that staff and consultants have a clear responsibility not to try and sugar coat the impact on the existing community. It should be stated up front that in this case (as in every other case where development is being foisted on a community), it is a given, that the quality of life for the existing community is going to take a hit and they are just darn well going to have to live with it, no bland platitudes about community integration and connectivity please.

It is surely obvious to the meanest intelligence that if you cram in residential buildings all over the study area, three or four storeys high, you are going to compound a traffic problem which is already so bad that a zillion dollars of tax money is being set aside for a link from the hospital to Riverside drive. We have had study after study on cut through traffic, for which there is clearly no solution, other than to divert it from one street to another with conditional turn signs, and yet we now have a proposal to dump a whole lot more people and their cars and trucks in an apparent effort to jam up this study area to the limit. Just what sort of public policy is operating here?

In this specific case for example, the Faircrest Heights and Riverview C.A.s have written letters to Premier McGuinty and to his Brother the local Federal M.P., pointing out that the Hospital is bound to need the NDMC lands for as yet unforeseen expansion over the next few years, and if they are not held in abeyance, then we will be in the same shambles that the Civic hospital is in now - bursting at the seams with nowhere to expand. To date we have had not a scintilla of a response.

The NDMC land is Federal land, there is absolutely no reason on earth why it needs to be disposed of. The Federal Government is in a surplus situation and certainly doesn't need the cash. That land can and should be turned over to the province for future health care facilities, especially as both governments claim that health care is their number one priority for their current terms in office.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that heavy pressure from the development industry is the real reason for the rush to declare these lands surplus. If that is the case, then it is yet another example of public policy being blind-sided by political considerations, with local communities being the losers.

Cheers,
Quentin Bristow

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