Those upset with the location of the proposed new mega hospital in Windsor are pushing back against future plans for the area around the site.
A secondary plan is being drawn up to map out what the land around the new hospital could look like — it's a 360 hectare (889 acres) stretch of land from County Rd. 42, County Rd. 17, the 8th Concession and Baseline Rd.
A meeting Wednesday night at Roseland Golf and Country Club in Windsor saw upwards of a hundred people arguing the proposed hospital location is all wrong and the planning process has been flawed.
The site selection committee has picked land at County Road 42 and the 9th Concession for the proposed hospital — set to replace Windsor Regional and Hotel-Dieu Grace.
Mitch Oncea from Windsor feels planning out a new neighbourhood in the city's south-end is a bit backwards.
"I think you would have the community in place first before you propose a hospital for it and this is going opposite to that thought."
Joe Dyment is a partner with MHBC Planning and has been hired by Windsor Regional Hospital to come up with the secondary plan.
He says there's nothing backwards about the planning.
"Imagine what the impact would be if you were somewhere in another part of the city and say, 'Oh by the way we're building an eight-storey, 1-million sq. ft. hospital in your neighbourhood,'" says Dyment. "This would be a different type of a meeting wouldn't it?"
Jim Dyment, a partner with MHBC Planning, speaks to reporters at a public information and input session regarding the secondary plan for lands near the proposed single-site acute care hospital on July 5, 2017. (Photo by Ricardo Veneza)
Doug Charles from Windsor doesn't see the need to plan for south-end development when there are plenty of vacant properties in the city core.
"He seem to say this isn't really about the hospital, it's about city planning and it's just going to gut the city. I don't understand how they can even be planning on this — there's no prediction of growth."
Dyment says it's important to get a plan in place ahead of when development is finally ready to happen — adding drainage is a major question that needs an answer.
"We need to do this now — we don't know when it's going to develop around [the proposed hospital] — but if we don't identify it now, 50 years from now our grandchildren might be having flooding basements that they didn't have before climate change reached the stage where we said, 'We really did it this time didn't we?'"
A public information and input session regarding the secondary plan for lands near the proposed single-site acute care hospital in Windsor is held on July 5, 2017. (Photo by Ricardo Veneza)
Dyment stresses the secondary plan is focused on the area around the hospital, but is part of broader proper city planning.
"We want to have a 20 year supply of land designated, we want to have a three-year supply of draft plans approved so that the affordability of housing stays there — so, we need to consider all of that as we go through this process and make sure that the [City of Windsor] is considering this in an holistic manner and not just this area."
Kingsville's former deputy mayor Tamara Stomp attended the meeting.
She works in Windsor as a lawyer and feels planning is being done in the wrong end of the city.
"It is not a hospital hub, it's an airport hub," says Stomp. "You picked the airport a long time ago, I cannot imagine in a million years why anybody would want to be operated on with a supersonic jet going by."
Planners will now take the feedback they received on Wednesday to the City of Windsor, ERCA and the Windsor Airport to revise the secondary plan.
A public meeting including city councillors is set for the Fall.
A public information and input session regarding the secondary plan for lands near the proposed single-site acute care hospital in Windsor is held on July 5, 2017. (Photo by Ricardo Veneza)