Hospitals in KW

[SF22]

You know a spot with tons of space, access to trees and a stream, an LRT stop and direct highway access?

Rockway Golf Course.

[…]

I'd much rather have a world-class hospital near the city centre and a golf course at the edge of town, than the other way around.

And if they’re sensible with the design, most of the 60 acres doesn’t need to built on immediately, or ever.

For political reasons, probably need to make an alternate golf course, but as you say, better that out of town somewhere than the hospital.

We could use the remaining space for parkland near the creek, or affordable housing! Sounds win-win to me.

A Record article from 2019 said that the two Kitchener golf courses (Rockway and Doon Valley) only return $75k/year total back to the city. So you could estimate that Rockway is putting maybe $30-40k/year back into city pockets. That's frankly a tiny amount of money considering how much land we're talking about, not to mention the location it's in.

[neonjoe]

If the city really wanted to they could put a course in the South West, even outside of the countryside line. Currently Golf Courses are an allowed use in the Greenbelt. Maybe replace the gravel pit beside RBJ Schlegel Park since it's outside of the country side line. Golf strikes me as one of those activities that requires a car, I haven't see anyone lug a set of clubs on transit or a bike.

[bravado]

If the city really wanted to they could put a course in the South West, even outside of the countryside line. Currently Golf Courses are an allowed use in the Greenbelt. Maybe replace the gravel pit beside RBJ Schlegel Park since it's outside of the country side line. Golf strikes me as one of those activities that requires a car, I haven't see anyone lug a set of clubs on transit or a bike.

It also strikes me as perhaps the #1 preferred land use for the kind of people who have sway in municipal decision-making, but it's still a good idea for the hospital placement!

[ac3r]

They're not going to use Rockway...

[danbrotherston]

If the city really wanted to they could put a course in the South West, even outside of the countryside line. Currently Golf Courses are an allowed use in the Greenbelt. Maybe replace the gravel pit beside RBJ Schlegel Park since it's outside of the country side line. Golf strikes me as one of those activities that requires a car, I haven't see anyone lug a set of clubs on transit or a bike.

"Golf is an allowed use in the greenbelt"

Ahh..wonderful. Yet another example of people confusing the colour green with environmentally friendly.

As for whether people drive to Golf...I agree that is normal, but I'm going to suggest it has much more to do with the people who play golf and much less to do with the game itself which "requires" a car. But for the record, my father-in-law regularly plays golf with a guy who bikes to the course.

[ijmorlan]

If the city really wanted to they could put a course in the South West, even outside of the countryside line. Currently Golf Courses are an allowed use in the Greenbelt. Maybe replace the gravel pit beside RBJ Schlegel Park since it's outside of the country side line. Golf strikes me as one of those activities that requires a car, I haven't see anyone lug a set of clubs on transit or a bike.

"Golf is an allowed use in the greenbelt"

Ahh..wonderful. Yet another example of people confusing the colour green with environmentally friendly.

As for whether people drive to Golf...I agree that is normal, but I'm going to suggest it has much more to do with the people who play golf and much less to do with the game itself which "requires" a car. But for the record, my father-in-law regularly plays golf with a guy who bikes to the course.

True enough, but a golf course is probably better than a gravel pit. Although not better than re-wilding the gravel pit.

[dtkvictim]

If the city really wanted to they could put a course in the South West, even outside of the countryside line. Currently Golf Courses are an allowed use in the Greenbelt. Maybe replace the gravel pit beside RBJ Schlegel Park since it's outside of the country side line. Golf strikes me as one of those activities that requires a car, I haven't see anyone lug a set of clubs on transit or a bike.

"Golf is an allowed use in the greenbelt"

Ahh..wonderful. Yet another example of people confusing the colour green with environmentally friendly.

The greenbelt is already a mixed bag of "environmentally friendly", since I think the majority of it is farmland. But of course, farms are actually needed unlike golf.

It's probably better to think about the greenbelt as protecting vital infrastructure (farms, water, etc.) than anything to do with protecting nature.

[nms]

A big mark against using the Rockway Golf Course site it that it's on a major floodplain. Virtually everything south of Univeristy/Glasgow, west of King St and Homer Watson Blvd, east of Ira Needles Blvd and north of Bleams Rd drains through the golf course. Yes, we'll hope that the stormwater engineers got everything right in the last 150 years that they have been laying storm drains, but a major rainfall event (eg a '100-year flood') could be a problem.

[Lebronj23]

Article on an update for the new hospital including a cool render of a new stadium at the Charles terminal

https://archive.ph/iGuxS

[danbrotherston]

Yeah, that's pretty much as expected. I don't really agree with any of the proposals, but it's revealing that they used 50 acres as a hard limit, and "near transit" is an also ran criteria.

Basically I'd put good money on all three options being large suburban or even exurban plots right now, any of which would make the city meaningfully worse in the near and long terms. (and the sites will probably get points for "near transit" because there exists a bus, never mind it's hours or frequency are because the people making these decisions don't actually care about transit, just the impression of transit).

But welcome to North America, where the "our cities are improving" must be annotated by "well actually by 'improving' we mean they're getting worse more slowly than they used to be".

The proposal probably is the better option, but IMO, megaprojects like this are usually bad ideas, and incremental improvements are a better strategy. Both St. Mary's and GRH have significant room to progressively expand and improve over time.

[ijmorlan]

Yeah, that's pretty much as expected. I don't really agree with any of the proposals, but it's revealing that they used 50 acres as a hard limit, and "near transit" is an also ran criteria.

The article also says that “one of the largest hospitals in Canada was built on 10 acres in Mississauga”. So unless our hospital is required to be 5 times bigger still, the 50 acre requirement is clearly stupid; so stupid that I would start looking for criminal motivation if I didn’t have more understanding of just how deeply stupid some intelligent people can be.

Transit definitely should be a hard requirement. What are the 50 acres for, anyway, if not a grossly excessive amount of parking?

The proposal probably is the better option, but IMO, megaprojects like this are usually bad ideas, and incremental improvements are a better strategy. Both St. Mary's and GRH have significant room to progressively expand and improve over time.

I’ve never understood this argument that something like a hospital is old and therefore must be replaced. It’s not impossible, but a bunch of concrete floor plates held up by pillars don’t really wear out normally. And amalgamating lots of hospitals into one mega-hospital is just not a good way of serving a large area like our city.

[bravado]

Woohoo, another scenario where we can’t seem to make any meaningful decisions, or even a panel to provide recommendations to the person making decisions, in any reasonable time frame. I love this erosion of state capacity!

[westwardloo]

I hope they don't let the minimum 50 Acres site determine the perfect site for the Hospital.  It is such an arbitrary number forced by the province. The Aud lands are the clear front runner for best site in terms of car and transit access. No doubt the panel is going to recommend a site in south kitchener or by the St. Jacobs Market. I don't agree with some of you that we can just keep expanding the existing Hospitals in the Region. There is no room on the st. Mary's site to expand, and GRH is such a Frankenstein of a building that it would cost more to expand/ upgrade the site to meet the needs of our growing city then it would be to build new. They are also not one "Mega Hospital", the plan is to keep GRH operational and close St. Mary's. It will function as the main hospital in our Region and beyond though. Wouldn't it be nice if residents in the region and guelph didn't need to go to Hamilton or London for medical procedures?

[danbrotherston]

I hope they don't let the minimum 50 Acres site determine the perfect site for the Hospital.  It is such an arbitrary number forced by the province. The Aud lands are the clear front runner for best site in terms of car and transit access. No doubt the panel is going to recommend a site in south kitchener or by the St. Jacobs Market. I don't agree with some of you that we can just keep expanding the existing Hospitals in the Region. There is no room on the st. Mary's site to expand, and GRH is such a Frankenstein of a building that it would cost more to expand/ upgrade the site to meet the needs of our growing city then it would be to build new. They are also not one "Mega Hospital", the plan is to keep GRH operational and close St. Mary's. It will function as the main hospital in our Region and beyond though. Wouldn't it be nice if residents in the region and guelph didn't need to go to Hamilton or London for medical procedures?

I think you are exactly right about what the sites will be.

As for expanding, there's actually tons of room available at St. Marys.

Here look.

   

There's a parking lot across the street, and another one further on, both of which could be used to expand the hospital. Combined they're bigger than the existing site.

Is it an easy or instant mega project? No. Is it a long term incremental growth plan, obviously. And given that they already managed to convert one block of housing into parking, they could easily do that again to expand further if for some reason it was absolutely mandatory to maintain the surface parking lot. And yes, again, these aren't instant things, like I said, I think incremental strategies are best.

The situation at GRH is even more so, there's tons of empty land around it, whether we want to nearly double the site's footprint from Manulife, or build on the existing parking lots on the GRH site, or expand across King St., or across Green St., there are many options.

Incremental projects are better because they are less likely to end up as boondoggles that are late and over budget. To say nothing of further utilizing the excellent central locations the hospital already has, rather than moving to an exurban site that further reinforces inequities in the region.

[ac3r]

I can confirm that the two main options they are considering are either The Aud location (this is unfortunately rather unlikely to happen) or somewhere in the far east of the city near the landfill/Ira Needles. My partner has been trying to let me know what she can about things. It's still quite hush hush, but those are the two main choices for now. They apparently are not giving much consideration to anywhere else, with the cost of the project being the main factor they are being forced to consider.