By John Campbell, Community Press
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Warkworth – The Bridge Hospice is just $88,000 – and an Ontario Municipal Board hearing – away from realizing its dream of building Northumberland County’s first residential hospice.
More attention was paid at the hospice’s annual general meeting last Sunday to the organization’s hugely successful fundraising efforts than the fly in the ointment represented by the OMB hearing.
With good reason: It’s “been a remarkable year for Bridge Hospice,” outgoing chair Dr. Cheryl Gibson said. “At last year’s annual meeting we had $40,000 and a dream … We now have over $200,000, and we hope to start building this year.”
The one-acre site is “a perfect spot” on Old Hastings Road that’s been rezoned but which is now the subject of an appeal by a neighbour, Don Dudley. The hearing is scheduled for May 25, Gibson told the gathering of close to 40 people at the Town Hall Centre for the Arts.
Among those present was Dudley who spoke to The Community Press afterward.
“The appeal is based on water pressure,” he said. “For the record I am not against the hospice.”
Dudley explained he was looking to develop five building lots in the same area as the proposed hospice is located but had been told by the municipality that there is an “inadequate supply” of water to serve his lots and that Old Hastings Road “was subject to negative pressure” which poses “a real threat of contamination.”
If that’s the case, “then there shouldn’t be any development,” including construction of the hospice, Dudley said.
He’s been in discussions with Trent Hills director of planning Jim Peters to try to resolve the matter. He said the municipality plans to build a pumping station that will address the issue of water pressure “for health and safety reasons” and to supply a major subdivision that’s been planned nearby in the village.
Dudley said he told Peters that “as soon as that was resolved (and) there was adequate supply for (him) as well as anybody else,” then he would have “no objections” to the rezoning.
Dudley said he has been given “the go-ahead to develop two lots … with the understanding that this new pumping station is going in.
“I’m hoping that we don’t have to continue with the appeal,” he said. “I want confirmation from the municipality that our lots are going to be treated the same way as the hospice, that’s all I’m asking for. We started in 2007 the process of getting our property developed and I think we’ve been reasonable in waiting.”
While the municipality has been working on a solution that would remove the need for the OMB hearing, Bridge Hospice has been busy raising the funding required to build and operate a 1.500-square-foot hospice with three bedrooms: $300,000 for construction, $50,000 for furnishings and equipment, and $50,000 for startup costs, including wages for staff.
With Warkworth Community Foundation having committed $50,000 to the project ,$88,000 remains to be raised, said Dr. Bob Stephens, chair of the fundraising committee.
Stephens said Bridge Hospice will need to come up with a plan prior to construction to show the foundation the hospice will be “run efficiently and in the black,” whether or not government funding is provided for its operations
