The Peterborough Examiner e-edition

Havelock seniors home ‘on track’

BRENDAN BURKE

A 128-bed longterm-care home has been approved for Havelock by the Ministry of Long-Term Care, with Peterborough’s AON Inc. as the developer and a deadline to have shovels in the ground by Aug. 31 this year.

“I had a meeting with (Peterborough—Kawartha MPP) Dave Smith last week. He assured me everything’s on track to build this summer,” Jim Martin, mayor of Havelock-Belmont-Methuen Township, said during a council meeting on Tuesday.

“There’s some light at the end of the tunnel and we’re all hoping that this summer will be what we’ve been looking for for 15 years.”

A letter to Brad Smith, president and chief executive officer of AON, which was shared at the meeting, confirmed AON’s application for funding to develop the home has been approved by the province.

“Unfortunately, they pulled the licence last year, so we started over again with the past council to get this thing moving,” Martin said.

Last March, the Ontario government cancelled a development

agreement with AON to build the home — slated to be located on an Old Norwood Road parcel of land in the southwest corner of Havelock — which the township had purchased for the facility and rezoned and serviced with water and sewers.

This triggered a search for a new developer by the township.

But in January of this year, the province recently amended its capital development funding policy, “which has really improved the viability of the development of long-term care facilities,” said Robert Lamarre, deputy chief building official for the township, at the time.

The province addressed the

shortcomings of its capital funding policy, Lamarre noted, saying the purpose of the changes was to identify projects which have already received conditional bed allocations — such as Havelock — and can be expected to start construction Aug. 31.

Former township mayor Ron Gerow spoke at Tuesday’s meeting about the need for a medical centre to be part of the long-term-care home development.

The Havelock Medical Centre was closed last year due to the poor condition of the building.

He said a medical centre had been part of the original plans for the property when planning first began and money was spent by the council of the day on architectural plans for it.

In 2016, the township was turned down for a licence by the province for the home, something the township had been campaigning for since 2009.

Gerow subsequently led a rally at Queen’s Park in Toronto to press the provincial government for funding and approval for the proposed project.

Approval came in 2018, but construction kept getting delayed. It was supposed to be a “health campus” for the township that would also include affordable and supportive housing for people of all ages and a medical centre.

Martin said a medical centre will “be part of the township’s strategic plan.”

“We talked about it last term and that’s why we felt comfortable getting rid of the medical centre. But this is our priority right now. Long-term care is our biggest priority and always has been.”

Bob Angione, Havelock-Belmont-Methuen’s chief administrative officer, said the township has recently been discussing the potential for adding a medical centre with both AON and the ministry.

“That is the secondary phase of the project,” he said. “But the first and foremost priority, of course, is the long-term care home. We have to get that done. There is a deadline to have shovels in the ground by Aug. 31 of this summer, so that’s the first priority.”

AON representatives could not be reached for comment.

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2023-06-07T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-06-07T07:00:00.0000000Z

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