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By Peter Kuitenbrouwer
Residents and architects campaigning to save a historic hospital building in Riverdale won a skirmish at City Hall this week as members of the powerful administration committee asked for more information before approving a land swap on the site.
The fight to save the hospital has also emerged as an election issue in the by-election to fill a vacant seat in the provincial legislature for Toronto-Danforth. Both the Liberal and New Democrat candidates favour saving the 1963 "half-round" Riverdale Hospital building, designed by Chapman and Hurst, at Broadview Avenue and Gerrard Street East.
"I know if people put their minds to saving this building,
we can do it," said Ben Chin, the television journalist
who is Liberal candidate for the seat. "Why can't
we honour the heritage of Chapman's design?"
Residents go to the polls March 30th.
Peter Tabuns, the NDP candidate, said "I think [Premier] Dalton McGuinty should be providing funding for the retention of the half-round building. It's a landmark of that architectural era and it's a landmark in the riding."
Bridgepoint Health, once known as Riverdale Hospital, wants to demolish the "half-round" building as part of a $200-million plan to build a new hospital. Bridgepoint also wants to give the city a piece of land just south of the Don Jail, for a new city park. In exchange the city would give Bridgepoint a piece of land on Gerrard Street East.
The land exchange has raised eyebrows in the neighbourhood because the City has rezoned the land Bridgepoint would receive to allow an eight stories-high condo, not including penthouses and mechanicals. The hospital is coy about its plans.
"At the present time we don't have a specific plan for what will go on that site," Marian Walsh, CEO of Bridgepoint, said yesterday. Asked whether a condo could go there, she replied, "We haven't said that that is not what we will do".
The city's administration committee deferred approval of the land swap and asked for:
- City lawyers to look at getting the land back if the hospital use ends.
- Clarification from the province on its support for Bridgepoint.
- More explanation on the length of the agreement and restrictive covenants on the hospital.
"It's not unusual that the city would want to look at certain aspects of the plan in more detail," Ms. Walsh said yesterday. "We are confident they will approve the plan."
City staff said the land swap is revenue neutral, but Mark Osbaldeston, a local resident, argued it is not.
"Bridgepoint receives a prime development parcel, with pending approvals for an eight-storey condominium building, with valley views. In exchange, the city receives land bisected by a road, with no views, and presumably little or no development potential."
"Citizens of Toronto now wonder how the waterfront ended up with a wall of private condominiums," he added. "The committee is now being explicitly asked to sell public parkland overlooking the Don Valley for condominium development. We must not repeat the mistakes of the past."
Jane Burgess, a heritage architect who is a third-generation resident of Riverdale said she is encouraged by the city's decision to talk directly to the province about plans for the hospital site.
"So far all we've heard is Bridgepoint saying what the province will and won't do," she said.
In a recent letter pleading for the hospital, she writes, "I have fed a friend in a four-person room who had two broken wrists breakfast every weekday morning for three months there. I know the problems with the washrooms, the plumbing and the corridors but I know that no other hospital gives its patients such peace."
Mr. Chin said he has not won the government's support for saving the hospital building but believes he can make a forceful case at the Liberal caucus.
"I don't frankly really know what the government wants," he said. "Maybe they'll regret they supported me, because I'll be the biggest trouble-maker in the caucus."
Riverdale ripe for condo conversion: Globe and Mail, June 17th, 2005.
Critique of the meeting: Globe and Mail, July 9th, 2005.
Argument for demolition of Riverdale: bad plumbing?: National Post, Nov 11th, 2005.
Demolition of significant modern buildings picks up momentum: Globe and Mail, Nov. 26th, 2005.
History vs Healthcare? Or not...?: Eye, Dec. 8th, 2005.
Debate swirls around hospital's fate at Council meeting.: National Post, Jan. 18th, 2006
Riverdale Hospital for wrecking?: Star, Jan. 25th, 2006
Keep historic half-round around as it is: Star, Jan. 26th, 2006.
Demolition plan roundly criticized: National Post, Feb. 2nd, 2006.
Development arguments wanting for logic: Now, Feb. 9, 2006.
Demolition is environmentally unconscienable: National Post, Feb. 17th, 2006.
Citizens catch Bridgepoint hi-jinx: Now, March 16th, 2006.
Progressives on Council fumble the Bridgepoint
scheme: Now, March 23rd,
2006.
Save Riverdale
Toronto Architectural Conservancy
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