Kelowna Council puts IH on notice

Photo: Contributed - Google Maps

Interior Health has been put on notice.

Kelowna City Councillors will be looking for answers to tough questions at a public hearing July 30 concerning the health authorities desire to turn three lots into surface parking on Royal Avenue.

Photo: Contributed - Artist Rendering

The properties in question are all part of the city's Heritage Conservation area while the home at 434 Royal Avenue is listed on the Heritage Register.

While the 91 surface parking stalls across from KGH's new Emergency entrance are desperately needed for people visiting or dropping off family members at emergency, many councillors want assurances this is not the start of a slippery slope into the heritage district.

Councillor Robert Hobson, who did planning responsible for the Heritage Conservation area 30 years ago, led the charge.

Many of Hobson's concerns centred around the heritage area.

"It is unfortunate that this major facility was built without adequate parking on site. There is no question there is a need for additional parking near emergency given the configuration of the site. It's hard to imagine where it would go other than across the street," stated Hobson.

"However, the implications for the neighbourhood is a real fear and, I think, a justified fear that this will lead to pressure for further redevelopment of the area."

Hobson says the balance between preserving the heritage buffer and providing much needed parking is a tough decision.

"If we are going to proceed, we are going to have to proceed with absolute assurance that it will not lead to further bleeding off of institutional uses into the conservation area," says Hobson.

"While this row of houses facing Royal is not very livable anymore as residential, and for that reason could justifiably be considered to be used for transitional purposes, to go any further would, in my view, be disastrous for investment in conservation in that neighbourhood."

He says Interior Health will have to come to the table July 30 and convince him all of the properties are required, specifically the property at 434 Royal Avenue.

"I am concerned about the third property on the left which is a heritage building on the Heritage Registry. I will need to be convinced that property needs to be part of the plan," added Hobson.

"Interior Health has to come forward at the public hearing and really explain why they need all three of these properties. A number of the neighbours have said there could be better parking planning on the hospital site itself. Unfortunately there is no room for a parkade near the emergency (department)."

Hobson also wants assurances the new parking will be strictly for public use and not "as a more convenient place for staff to park because they won't go a block down the street or they won't park in the parkade."

Others were frustrated at the lack of planning that went into construction of the new hospital and the lack of forethought that went into parking.

"I want to put it on the record that the one part of this report that did stand out for me  was where it states 'the hospital campus should have been comprehensively planned so the adjacent residential properties and heritage conservation area were not negatively impacted," says Councillor Colin Basran.

"Can't complain but there will be people at the public hearing who will want to know how we got here. Why wasn't this better thought out."

Urban Land Use Manager, Danielle Noble, says a planning session will begin later this year to find out how to integrate the hospital and the neighbourhood.

"Phase one in this local area planning exercise will commence at the end of 2013. It's basically a scoping exercise to understand the hospital/residential interface issues and to have a plan to address some of those more proactively instead of being reactive. This issue is being addressed at a larger scale," says Noble.

Mayor Walter Gray defended the IH proposal saying the hospital expansion has made Kelowna the epicentre for health care in the southeast part of the province.

"If we have to carve off a little piece of a heritage area, providing we are still committing to the concept of heritage, we have to understand that we have to do what's important. What is important is to accommodate the hospital and the people that go to the hospital and particularly those going in an emergency situation," says Gray.

"It's not just their problem but it's our problem and we have to help solve it. If we have to sacrifice a few lots....."

Gray says council will have to make a tough decision and live with it.

He added it may be time to redefine the heritage boundary, "because this is going to happen again in five or 10 years."