Neighbours pore over details of future Civic hospital plan

Some residents who live near the future Civic campus of The Ottawa Hospital are starting to wade through thousands of pages of details to see how the huge site will be laid out, and are wishing they had more time.

The hospital presented its plans to a city committee at the beginning of May for the long-planned $2.8-billion hospitalon an escarpment near Dow's Lake, due to open in 2028.

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While opening day is a long way off, construction of the four-storey parking garage is due to start in 2022. Ottawa city council must first approve a master plan for the site, which is expected to gobefore planning committee in late August.

That means people like Karen Wright, president of the Civic Hospital Neighbourhood Association, must pore over documents madepublic on the city's websitejust over a week ago, and get her feedback to city planners by June 18.

She's excited for the hospital, which aside from light rail isone of the biggest projects the city has ever seen, but she worries about that timing.

"I know we won't see a hospital being built until 2024, but this site plan will put into black and white the plans of what it's going to look like," Wright said.

Main entrance on Carling

The new hospital has been in the works for years, and community groups have been providing the hospital input over the past three. Neighbourhood associations around Dow's Lake and in the Carlington area recently received a briefing by hospital and city officials

"Overall, there are some wonderful things in the summary we've seen," saidWright. The Trillium O-Train station will beintegrated into the hospital site, andpathways run through so the hospital is not a "separate island," she said.

She's also pleased Queen Juliana Park will be relocated as a green roof on the parking garage.

"We were very concerned that was going to be removed andliterallypave paradise and put in a parking lot," she said.

Wright sees a lot of long nights ahead reading the1,044-page transportation study to see how hospital traffic might reach Highway 417.

The document does show the main public entrance to the campus will line up with Champagne Avenueinstead of Sherwood Drive, in order to limit traffic cutting through the neighbourhood.

Ambulances will use Maple Drive in the Central Experimental Farm to reach theback of hospital.

3,099 parking spaces

On the whole, the new campus is expected to be much bigger than the currentcentury-old one located a kilometre to the west.

By the time it's fully builtin 2048 whenthe University of Ottawa Heart Institute is set to relocate to the sitethe new hospitalis projectedto have twice as much floor space and double the number of beds ofthe current Civic campus, and employ three times more staff.

Even by opening day in seven years, transportation experts project 30 per cent of staff and visitors willarrive by public transit, while 65 per cent would arrive by car.

In all, the site will have 3,099 parking spaces,with 2,500 of those spaces in the new public garage.

As for an existingparking lot at Dow's Lake that many residents currently use in the winter for skating on the Rideau Canal, itwill be redeveloped. The hospital will reserve200 spaceson the garage's main floor for the National Capital Commission and public events.

Hospital officials were not available for comment by deadline.