The Nipissing Serenity Hospice is set to secure ownership of its desired location after City Council authorized the sale of the surplus land for just $1 on Monday night.
The Metcalfe Street property overlooking Laurier Woods, which deputy mayor Sheldon Forgette said is valued at around $230,000, is currently unoccupied and was declared as surplus during in-camera discussions.
“At the end of the day, it’s a nice property and tonight you just saw council supporting the need for a hospice in our community,” said Forgette. “The area doesn’t have a hospice and people would like a relaxing place to go and spend the final moments of their life and I think there’s a tremendous need in our community for that right now.”
The successful group was competing against the North Bay and Area Community Hospice organization, who pitched to have a 10-bed residential hospice on the existing footprint of the North Bay Regional Health Centre.
But the decision ultimately came down to the North East Local Health Integration Network (Northeast LHIN), who sided with the Serenity group late last year.
“It was LHIN’s decision which hospice they wanted to go with,” Forgette explained. “With the LHIN choosing this one, they chose a location where it wouldn’t be on hospital grounds, so it would be a bit more secluded and not in a hospital setting.”
The Serenity Hospice group unveiled their plans for the nearly $5 million palliative care facility as part of its Capital Campaign Launch last June. However, the board also said they wanted to push for $6 million as their fundraising goal as a potential buffer against provincial funding shortfall.
On Monday, Forgette said everything is set for the sale as long as the group meets the city’s conditions for ownership exchange.
“There are conditions to meet before it’s all completed, but as of now council is committed to selling them the land if they meet all of those conditions,” he said.
At their capital campaign launch, the group said the 10-bed facility would be fully capable with bilingual support and their support team would include a part-time medical director as well as mental health support for patients and their families.
While they anticipated that the project could be completed within eight months after the ground breaking, Community Services chairman Mark King said there are no solid plans or timetable to break ground.
“It’s my understanding that they have to go through a pretty fair fundraising activity,” King said on Monday. “We’ll have to see if the community and actually the region is prepared to support it.
“I think it’s a great location - it’s a quiet area of the city, but it’s close to downtown and on bus routes, that sort of thing,” he added. “It will require a little bit of work because there’s a lot of bedrock on that area […] We haven’t seen any plans at this point, so it’ll be interesting to see how it proceeds.
