Stalemate over Vaughan hospital appears over

Yorkregion.com
June 4, 2015
By Adam Martin-Robbins

A truce has been reached in the protracted battle that brought the Vaughan hospital to a standstill.

The city and the Vaughan Health Campus of Care (VHCC) announced in a media release, late this afternoon, an agreement has been reached “that allows the construction of Vaughan's new hospital to move forward.”

"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 the news release. “We can now work together to provide the services that the people of this city deserve.

Building a hospital is about people - it's about investing in people's health and ensuring that we all have access to the very best health care services available."

The agreement comes a week after the Vaughan Citizen reported that Michael De Gasperis, a prominent local developer who heads up the VHCC, offered to relinquish the organization’s claims on about 62 acres of hospital lands, located at Jane Street and Major Mackenzie Drive.

The non-profit organization has long argued it has a legally binding agreement with the city, signed in 2009 when the land was purchased, that gives it a say in what happens on the 82-acre site.

But the city has disputed the VHCC’s claim since 2011 when councillors voted to retain control of the property and proceeded with the municipality’s own plans for the land.

As a result of the terms of a 99-year land lease recently signed by the city and Mackenzie Health, which is overseeing construction and operation of the new hospital, the dispute between the VHCC and the city had to be resolved, either through negotiations or the courts.

Otherwise, work to secure a consortium to build, finance and maintain the hospital, slated to open in 2019, could not proceed, according to Mackenzie Health president and CEO Altaf Stationwala.

That’s what ultimately led to the VHCC offering to release its claim on the parcel of land needed for the hospital.

In exchange, it was seeking a key role in developing the remaining lands for other health care uses not offered by the hospital, De Gasperis told the Citizen last week.

The VHCC also offered to allow the city to appoint a majority of its board members, provided the appointees were not politicians.

It’s unclear, at this point, if the VHCC’s offer was modified in order to reach an agreement with the city.

“For more than a decade, the Vaughan Health Campus of Care has been dedicated to bringing a hospital and ancillary health care services to the City of Vaughan,” De Gasperis said in the news release. “I would like to personally thank our board member volunteers, who have worked tirelessly over the years to bring this hospital to Vaughan and have raised more than $8 million for the construction of the hospital. We look forward to our hospital finally being built as quickly as possible, along with the much needed ancillary health care services complementing the hospital."