Ontario Construction News staff writer
Ottawa’s planning department has given a go-ahead to revised plans for Larga Baffin’s medical boarding complex in Ottawa’s Hunt Club neighbourhood, even after the project’s developers won an Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) fight with local residents over the site’s original design.
The revised design will still accommodate 350 clients from Nunavut, including patients and relatives from the Far North who need a place to stay while receiving medical care in Ottawa.
The planning department signed off in November on the new design that contains 176 units in five stories rather than 220 units in six stories. However, the structure will still accommodate 350 clients.
In an email to Nunatsiaq News earlier in the year, Larga Baffin spokesperson Bill McCurdy said the reduction in height and rooms is due to a change in the distribution of shared rooms and private rooms and should not affect the number of clients the facility can accommodate.
“In reviewing their functional requirements for space, it was determined that the average profile of the medical boarding home client has changed since we originally started planning for a new facility over seven years ago,” McCurdy wrote.
The medical boarding facility which temporarily houses Nunavummiut travelling to Ottawa for specialized medical treatment, received approval from Ottawa city council in June 2022 to build a larger centre near Hunt Club Road and Sieveright Avenue.
The new site will accommodate 350 clients, up from the 195 who can stay at its current Richmond Road location.
Larga Baffin’s original proposal called for 220 units in a six-storey building. However, the updated plan now calls for 176 rooms in five storeys.
McCurdy said the reduction in height and rooms is due to a change in the distribution of shared rooms and private rooms and should not affect the number of clients the facility can accommodate.
“This shift away from a need for single occupancy rooms toward a greater need for double occupancy rooms enabled us to reduce the number of rooms while still retaining capacity to accommodate up to 350 persons at one time,” he said.
McCurdy told the northern publication that the number of clients who travel alone versus those with an escort “has changed considerably” with a much greater proportion now arriving at the facility with an escort.
Planning documents say the building will include 94 parking spaces, with 81 in an underground parking garage and 13 spaces located at-grade at the south end of the building.
The revised plans also include site changes to mitigate some of the concerns about traffic and congestion expressed by the Upper Hunt Club Community Association, which waged an expensive fight all the way to the OLT, only to lose the case in July 2023.
The planning documents says the building “will consist of four wings configured in the shape of an ‘X; and separated by two landscaped courtyards, one facing Hunt Club Road and the smaller courtyard facing Sieveright Avenue. The building’s wings include brick masonry on the ground floor and wood cladding on the remaining four storeys and the central block will feature cladding with vertical glass fins.”
According to the documents, vehicular access will be limited to an entrance on Hunt Club Road. The second access on Siveright Avenue will be gate- controlled and limited to outbound traffic.
“The applicant is not currently proposing to redevelop the south portion of the site along Sieveright Avenue. This area, zoned Residential Fourth Density Subzone T (R4T[2795]), will remain vacant until the applicant finalizes plans for a future phase of development, which will also be subject to site plan control approval,” the documents say.
Details on when construction will begin, the project’s actual cost, and its general contractor were not available at press time. Project renderings were prepared by DTAH Architects.