Vaughan Citizen, Adam Martin-Robbins, October 10th, 2012
If you have you been wondering lately what is going on with Vaughan’s hospital, everything is “on track”, according to its president. Mackenzie Health president and CEO Altaf Stationwala said construction is slated to get under way in about three years. “We’re feeling very confident we’re on track,” Mr. Stationwala said, adding schedule are aligned for the city and hospital corporation. “It’s just a matter of getting the work done.”
That statement came a day after city council approved an agreement outlining how it and Mackenzie Health will work together to develop the controversial $80-million taxpayer-funded hospital lands.
Council voted unanimously to support a co-operation agreement with Mackenzie Health (formerly York Central) — the organization charged with planning Vaughan’s future hospital — after meeting behind closed doors for more than 2-1/2 hours. “Vaughan citizens should be very confident about the fact that a hospital is coming to the city,” Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua said in an interview. “This is yet another example of the co-operation required to make that a reality.”
Construction of the hospital is slated to begin in 2015/16 and the project is expected to be completed by 2018/19. Mr. Stationwala said the agreement is simply meant to “formalize” the relationship between the city and hospital corporation as it moves into the next stage of the five-stage planning process.“What’s happened is we’ve just formalized how the city and the hospital are going to work together with all of the partners, being the Ministry of Health and IO (Infrastructure Ontario), around the broader development,” Mr. Stationwala said. “It’s not just the 40 acres (for the hospital), but everything that goes with it. This is just something, as we’re getting into more detailed planning, that just had to happen.”
The agreement was precipitated by an assessment of the project being carried out by Infrastructure Ontario, which met with Mackenzie Health last week and with the city, he said.
“It’s great news for us because it means the project has the attention of government,” Mr. Stationwala said. Mackenzie Health has retained two firms, Agnew Peckham and Associates and Zeidler Partnership Architects, to assist it in completing the stage two planning work. The hospital corporation expects to deliver its stage two planning submission to the Health Ministry and the Central Local Health Integration Network in early 2013.
A land deal between the hospital corporation and the city still has to be worked out to ensure Mackenzie Health has control over the 40 acres it needs for the future hospital.
Mr. Stationwala said that agreement will likely be struck in the next few months and could be either a long-term lease or an ownership deal.
The city paid $60 million in 2009 to purchase the 82-acre property, at the northwest corner of Major Mackenzie Drive and Jane Street.
It also committed another $20 million to help develop the land into a state-of-the-art health care campus, complete with a full-service hospital and ancillary health care services such as a long-term care, laboratories and some type of medical research or education facility.
Vaughan property owners were then slapped with a levy on their tax bills to pay for it. At the time, the city had reached an agreement to transfer the entire parcel of land to the Vaughan Health Campus of Care, a private non-profit organization headed up by influential developer Michael DeGasperis, once it had secured approval to build a hospital. A short time later, the provincial government awarded York Central (now Mackenzie Health) the mandate to plan and build Vaughan’s first hospital. The campus of care group was, ultimately, left in charge of planning the ancillary services and secured a $10 million grant from the federal government, with the support of Conservative MP Julian Fantino, to carry out that work.
Mr. Fantino was heavily criticized at the time for facilitating a grant to an organization run by two of his key election campaign supporters, Mr. DeGasperis and prominent local businessman Sam Ciccolini, who sits on the campus of care board and served as chairperson of the now defunct Vaughan Health Care Foundation, the campus of care’s fundraising arm. The campus of care group was forced to surrender the grant earlier this year, after spending nearly $1.2 million, because the city refused to transfer control of the remaining 42-acres of land not being used for the hospital to the organization so it could develop a so-called “life sciences cluster”. The city’s decision came after a couple of councillors and former Vaughan MPP Greg Sorbara raised concerns about the campus of care group’s governance structure and a perceived lack of transparency at the organization.
Despite its recent difficulties, Mr. DeGasperis told The Citizen last September that the campus of care group is forging ahead with its plans. The mayor declined to discuss the city’s dealings with the campus of care group, instead pointing to the fact it recently hired a project management firm, Prism Partners Inc., to lead a team of consultants to complete a precinct plan for the hospital lands. The plan will identify the road network and access locations, transit facilities and services such as sewers and water supply.It will also guide the architectural, landscape and urban design elements of the site to incorporate environmentally sustainable initiatives and plans for the phasing in of future development. “Planning for the development of the lands is a significant project for Vaughan,” city manager Clayton Harris said. “In addition to preparing the lands for a new hospital, the city will focus on the future economic benefits of the site, which in turn adds value for the residents of Vaughan.”