Opposition grows to aboveground parking garage on new Civic Campus site

OTTAWA -

A proposal for the new Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus near Dows Lake is getting attention not for the facility itself, but for a parking lot.

Ottawa Centre New Democrat MPP Joel Harden wants the city to rethink the plan to replace part of Queen Juliana Park with a four-storey parking structure.

“We can’t pave paradise and put up a parking garage. That’s insane,” says Harden. “The community was promised that this parking facility would be underground and the Queen Juliana Park would be preserved. Now, at the eleventh hour, we’re hearing that isn’t the case.”

The parking lot would take up most of the park, but the plan includes adding green space to the top floor of the structure.

“We see this decision to push the hospital here, right next to a UNESCO World Heritage Site, uprooting 680 trees, and now we’re going to have a behemoth parking garage the size of the Ottawa Airport’s parking garage,” says Harden.

Former Ottawa city councillor Clive Doucet believes there is a better site available on which to build the new hospital.

“Dows Lake's hospital site is a nightmare,” says Doucet. “We had an NCC study, 21 criteria, 12 sites evaluated, six months, and the best professionals in the world decided on Tunney’s Pasture, which made perfect sense. More access points. More transit.”

“Clearly we have the space at Tunney’s Pasture,” says Harden. “We don’t have to worry about rerouting public transit; we don’t have to worry about parking. Let’s put it there.”

The National Capital Commission recommended Tunney’s Pasture as the site of the new Civic Campus in 2016, after the federal Liberals decided to revisit the previous Conservative government’s plan to build the new hospital on the Central Experimental Farm; however, the Ottawa Hospital’s board of directors unanimously rejected Tunney’s Pasture as an option. The board cited concerns about access, construction timelines and the cost of relocating to land already home to some government buildings as reasons for not choosing Tunney's Pasture.

The Ottawa Hospital says nothing is set in stone and there is still time to change the design based on feedback.

“We are currently consulting with communities and all levels of government in Ottawa and across the region and welcome the public’s comments on the proposed design for the new development. The site plan is not yet final, and it will continue to be adjusted based on consultations with the public and government.”

Karen Wright, president of the Civic Hospital Neighbourhood Association, says residents in the area don’t want to lose what little green space they have left.

“Having a world class site being used to house just a parking garage just seems like such a waste,” says Wright. “It’s an important project. We all want the hospital to be a success and this is one area we feel really does need to be modified.”

Construction on the $2.8 billion project is set to begin in 2024 and scheduled to be completed in 2028.

“You put up this huge monstrosity of a parking garage, right next to the Rideau Canal, it will be a national embarrassment,” says Harden. “That’s what I want us to avoid, a national embarrassment.”