The Campus of Care project proposed for 125 Peel Street in Thornbury will continue, but only with a narrow margin of council support shown in a vote during the last meeting.
At its meeting on Dec. 15 (which was a continuation of the Dec. 12 meeting agenda) council voted in favour of pursuing a Community Infrastructure and Housing Accelerator (CIHA) order from the province to speed up the campus project. The accelerator order is a new provincial tool replacing the Minister’s Zoning Order (MZO) that the town had previously requested.
The resolution to switch from the zoning order to the accelerator was expected to be a relatively routine piece of business, however, it became anything but when Coun. Gail Ardiel introduced a lengthy motion to pause the entire Campus of Care project.
After Ardiel’s motion was on the floor, town staff warned council that if the motion passed, the campus project would be in limbo, which could possibly lead to the loss of the 160 long-term care beds allocated to the town by the province. Council narrowly avoided this outcome by defeating Ardiel’s motion in a 4-2 vote. The motion was supported by just Ardiel and Coun. Alex Maxwell. Coun. June Porter was absent.
The motion from Ardiel resulted in lengthy debate at the council table, which eventually had to be paused after more than 90 minutes because council had its integrity commissioner and solicitor present (virtually) for an unrelated training and orientation session.
“I’m not in favour of an MZO or CIHA. Why do we need to rush? We have four new members that were not part of the process. I need more information,” said Ardiel. “This is the time to press the pause button.”
The resolution to pause the process caught other members of council off guard.
“I hadn’t expected this at all,” said Coun. Paula Hope. “I can’t say more strongly: please don’t vote in favour. The ministry wants full community support. If there isn’t, we lose the 160 beds. It’s that simple.”
CAO Shawn Everitt warned that pausing the project would interrupt the current Request for Proposal (RFP) process to find a proponent for Campus of Care - a process, the CAO said, that is almost complete. He also said stopping now would almost ensure the town could not meet the March 31 deadline to have a proposal for the 160 long-term care beds to the province. That deadline has already been extended by the province once.
“We would have to have a discussion about whether or not to proceed. The delay is significant,” said Everitt. “I don’t think we’d get a second extension.”
During the discussion, the CAO also stressed that the result of the RFP process will come to council for a decision. He said if council is not satisfied with what is proposed for the Campus of Care, it will have the opportunity to choose not to move forward with the project.
“Council will have every opportunity to turn this down,” said Everitt, pointing out that a decision could not be made now because there is no proposal yet. “It’s hard to turn something down when you haven’t received a proposal.”
Coun. Shawn McKinlay noted that extensive time, energy and resources have been expended by the town on Campus of Care.
“To delay it and shove it back means considerably more money. Work has been done,” said McKinlay. “One thing I hear from my demographic a lot is: 'what do you guys actually do? You don’t get anything done.' Let’s get this done.”
Deputy Mayor Peter Bordignon said delaying the project would put the entire concept in jeopardy. The deputy mayor said the town was lucky to get a 160-bed allocation and if the town doesn’t want to move forward with using those beds, the province will move them elsewhere.
“It’s far too soon to even have these discussions. Let’s see what it will look like first,” said Bordingon.
The resolution led Mayor Andrea Matrosovs to pass the gavel as chair of the meeting to Bordignon in order to express her opposition.
“I’m looking forward to finishing the process of the RFP so we have something to bring out to the public in the new year,” said Matrosovs. “We don’t have something to show the public at the moment. We need to know what is viable. I am unable to support putting a pause on this.”
The debate about the resolution ended when Hope asked for the mayor to call the vote, which resulted in the motion’s defeat. Later in the meeting, after the training sessions were complete, council resumed discussions on the item and the original motion on the agenda to switch from the zoning order to the accelerator process passed in a 5-1 vote with Ardiel opposed.
Subsequently to that vote, council also passed a separate resolution from Maxwell that encourages the public to continue to be involved as the Campus of Care process moves forward.
