Truce reached on Vaughan hospital lands

YorkRegion.com
June 11, 2015
By Adam Martin-Robbins

The prognosis for the hobbled Vaughan hospital just got a lot better.

The city and the Vaughan Health Campus of Care (VHCC) announced late last week they’ve struck a deal, putting to rest the protracted feud that brought the long-awaited project to a halt.

“We are very pleased with the decision made by Mayor Bevilacqua and his council to get this project back on track,” Michael DeGasperis, VHCC chairman and an influential local developer, said in an email.

“We look forward to our renewed partnership with the city and for us to collectively provide the health services that the people of Vaughan require and deserve.”

Under an agreement, signed June 3, the VHCC has relinquished its claim on 62 acres of the 82-acre site at the northwest corner of Jane Street and Major Mackenzie Drive.

That frees up the land needed for the hospital, as well as any future expansion, and allows Mackenzie Health, which is overseeing the project, to proceed with securing a consortium to build, finance and maintain the new hospital.

“This council recognizes that the efforts of the Vaughan Health Campus of Care have been instrumental in advancing the goal of a new hospital and health-care services for our community,” Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua said in a news release. “We can now work together to provide the services that the people of this city deserve.”

As part of the deal, the VHCC and the city plan to jointly develop about 15 acres of land adjacent to the hospital for ancillary health-care uses, which could include research and development facilities, an educational facility, a long-term care centre or a hospice, among other things, according to DeGasperis.

The city is to provide funding toward the project while the VHCC has committed to restructuring its governance model, he said.

The details of the restructuring still have to be confirmed, “but it will involve a continued significant involvement by the current board of directors,” according to DeGasperis.

“Allow me to make it abundantly clear, the VHCC and its members have absolutely nothing to gain from either a business or personal perspective in our vision and objectives over the past 13 years or in the future,” he said. “We have categorically been volunteering our time and resources for the people of Vaughan to ensure that the city, Mackenzie Health and the Province of Ontario provides the hospital and health-care services that they have committed to.”

The agreement puts to rest a dispute between the city and the VHCC that has dragged on since 2011 and stalled progress on a long-awaited hospital.

The trouble started when, after months of political wrangling, the city decided not to hand over the non-hospital lands to the VHCC, which it planned to develop for ancillary health-care services.

The VHCC considered the move a breach of an agreement it struck years ago with the city after the non-profit group brokered the deal to buy the property for the hospital from Cedar Fair Entertainment, owner of Canada’s Wonderland, for about $60 million.

At the time, the city 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 facility, laboratories and some type of medical research or education facility.

The entire $80 million is being paid back through a special levy on Vaughan property owners, which is expected to be in place until 2022.

When the land was purchased, the VHCC was leading the charge to bring a hospital to Vaughan and, under its agreement with the city, it was to be given control of the entire property once provincial approval to build a hospital was secured.

But when the province handed oversight of the hospital project to what was then called York Central Hospital, now known as Mackenzie Health, the VHCC shifted its focus to develop ancillary services on the remaining lands. It even secured a $10-million federal government grant to carry out that work.

Things went off the rails, however, when city council voted against handing over the land that the VHCC needed to bring its plans to fruition.

The VHCC was forced to give up the federal government grant money and shuttered its offices, but the non-profit group continued pressing its claim to have a say in what happened on the land.

The feud came to a head last month when the city inked a 99-year land lease with Mackenzie Health that gives the hospital corporation up to 50 acres of land and a say in what happens on an additional 12 acres surrounding the hospital.

In order for the land lease to come into effect, the dispute between the city and the VHCC had to be resolved, either through the courts or by a mutual agreement.

Mackenzie Health President and CEO Altaf Stationwala Mackenzie Health said he’s “very, very happy” to hear the matter has been resolved.

“It’s now an active project and we’ll be out to market (for a consortium) imminently,” he said in an interview Friday.

Stationwala said it’s unclear, at this point, if the delay caused by the feud will affect the timeline for completing the hospital.

“It could (be delayed), but at this point I don’t think it is,” he said. “We’re still aiming for 2019.”

In the meantime, Mackenzie Health has opened an urgent care centre at 9401 Jane St., just north of Rutherford Road, that should help take pressure off the emergency department at the Richmond Hill hospital, he noted.

The centre, open seven days a week and staffed by emergency doctors, serves people with non-life-threatening illnesses or injuries that don’t require hospitalization or immediate surgery, according to Mackenzie Health’s website.

“We think it’s another important service to the residents of Vaughan,” Stationwala said. “Obviously, this is a bridge until the (emergency department) opens at the new hospital.”