The National Capital Commission’s board has chosen Tunney’s Pasture — a sprawling federal property about four kilometres west of Parliament Hill — as the best possible site for the Ottawa Hospital’s new Civic Campus.
The controversial decision — nine votes in favour, two against, and two abstained — comes after months of deliberations and protests among some local residents about initial plans by the former Conservative government to build the new hospital across from the present one on an urban farm field used for crop and climate research by Agriculture Canada.
NCC CEO Mark Kristmanson said Tunney’s Pasture, the site of Health Canada’s headquarters, is “the most suitable campus for a rapidly growing city.” The NCC board cited numerous reasons for the decision, including proximity to a new light-rail transit line now under construction and existing parking structures.
The choice also preserves research land on the Central Experimental Farm, where three of the 12 proposed sites were located.
Pierre Poilievre, the Ottawa area’s only Conservative MP, has said the 92-year-old building is desperate for replacement. He has long advocated the site across the street from the current Civic Hospital on CEF farmland, saying the value of building a hospital on the adjacent field far outweighs the historical environmental research that would be lost.
He swiftly denounced the proposed site, saying the NCC’s decision is “forcing the hospital” to go to a “flawed location.”
When the Conservative government first announced a hospital replacement in 2014, it pointed to the 60-acre farmland site across Carling Avenue from the Civic as the best location. But that decision was made without public input and caused an uproar.
Environmental activists and lobby groups immediately pushed back, expressing a desire to protect the farm for its scientific importance, greenspace and historical value.
The NCC plan would involve 50 acres of land instead of the 60 acres originally requested by hospital officials, who said they needed 60 to accommodate the new hospital with room for parking, transit and future growth.
Officials with the Ottawa Hospital, which oversees both the Civic and General health centres, said in an email release “the site recommended today was not among the top-rated sites in our 2008 or 2016 reports.”
Produced in collaboration with iPolitics.