Is the Vaughan hospital standoff coming to an end?

YorkRegion.com
May 20, 2015
Adam Martin-Robbins  

The ongoing feud that brought the long-awaited Vaughan hospital to a halt could soon be resolved, The Vaughan Citizen has learned.

The Vaughan Health Campus of Care (VHCC) is offering to hammer out a new land agreement with the city so work on the hospital can resume, according to Michael DeGasperis, chairman of the non-profit group.  

“We’ve put out the olive branch. …We’ve actually given them the olive tree,” DeGasperis, who is also a prominent local developer, told The Vaughan Citizen Tuesday.

“We’ve agreed to unconditionally release the contribution agreement from the plus or minus 60 acres required to build the hospital and expand it in the future and provide servicing to the lands,” he added.  

The campus of care group has been intimately involved with the project for nearly a decade.

It spearheaded the early efforts to bring a hospital to Vaughan, with backing from the city council of the day.

The VHCC also brokered the $60-million deal to purchase the 82-acre hospital site, at the corner of Jane Street and Major Mackenzie Drive, back in 2009.

As part of that deal, known as the contribution agreement, the VHCC was to oversee development of a hospital and ancillary health-care services on the land around it.

Role shifted

But after the province handed control of the hospital project to what was then called York Central, now known as Mackenzie Health, the VHCC’s role shifted to developing just the ancillary services, which would provide revenue to support the hospital.

Then, in 2011, city council squeezed the non-profit group out of that role when it refused to hand over land the VHCC needed to realize its plans.

The city, Mackenzie Health and the campus of care group have been at loggerheads ever since.

But the VHCC’s offer could end the quarrel by giving Mackenzie Health the land it requires to forge ahead with the hospital.

“We are not here to stand in the way,” DeGasperis said. “There is no reason, whatsoever, that they cannot go ahead with the RFP (request for proposals) or to build the hospital. Absolutely no reason whatsoever.”

This latest development comes less than a week after The Vaughan Citizen reported that despite a 99-year land l1ease deal being signed by the city and Mackenzie Health, the long-awaited hospital is at a standstill.

That’s because the lease requires the city to resolve an ongoing dispute with the campus of care over its right to have a say in what happens on the 82 acres of land earmarked at Jane Street and Major Mackenzie Drive.  

The land lease deal with Mackenzie Health sets out a number of conditions that must be met for it to take effect.

Those conditions state that the contribution agreement between the VHCC and the city must be terminated either by “mutual agreement” or by the courts declaring the agreement null and void.

Alternatively, the contribution agreement can be amended to exclude any claims the campus of care group has on lands required for the hospital and the future expansion.

Until one of those two things happens, the hospital corporation can’t move ahead with selecting a consortium to design, build, finance and maintain the Mackenzie Vaughan Hospital, which is slated to open in 2019.

DeGasperis said the VHCC isn’t willing to terminate the contribution agreement.

But the organization is offering to revise the agreement so that its sole focus will be developing ancillary health-care services on land not required for the hospital, under the direction of a restructured board of directors, he said.

And, he added, the campus of care group is willing to let the city appoint the majority of the board’s members, provided they aren’t politicians.    

“The VHCC’s objective is to build a campus of care, build ancillary health services and any net revenues to those services would go to the hospital,” DeGasperis said.

The only stumbling block could be reaching an agreement about the parcels of land adjacent to the hospital, DeGasperis noted.  

Mackenzie Health, as part of its lease deal, has say over what can be built on those blocks to prevent competing uses — such as paid parking lots or health-care services offered by the hospital — from going there.

“Mackenzie Health has put in, for whatever reason, that the city or anybody else, except the VHCC, can build in there so that’s where we have a bit of a conflict, a bit of a problem,” DeGasperis said.

But, he added, “we’re ready, willing and able to abide by the restrictions set forth regarding ancillary health services, non-competing services, that sort of thing.”

It’s unclear, at this point, if the city will accept the VHCC’s offer and if it meets the requirements laid out in the ground lease signed by the hospital corporation and the city.

Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua didn’t respond to requests for comment by press time.

Mackenzie Health President and CEO Altaf Stationwala said he isn’t aware of the VHCC’s proposal, but he added that it’s “welcome news” so long as it meets the terms of the land lease deal.

“I can’t really comment. These are discussions that are between the city and the VHCC,” he said. “As long as it complies with the ground-lease, it’s welcome news. That’s the agreement the city and Mackenzie Health have signed. So if it complies with the ground lease, I’m ecstatic.”