Skip to content

LETTER: Mayor's task force needed to help make HRC vision a reality

Sale of London Psychiatric Hospital could be a template for repurposing Orillia property, says founding member of group behind arts proposal
170320HRCcampus
A map shows part of the former Huronia Regional Centre site. The component outlined in red is, essentially, the land that could be developed into something different.

OrilliaMatters received the following letter from Anderson Charters, who is a founding member of the Orillia Centre for Arts + Culture, formerly the Huronia Cultural Campus.
*******************
Does the Ontario government’s recent sale of the London Psychiatric Hospital provide a template for repurposing Orillia’s Huronia Regional Centre (HRC) property?

The government announced in January that it has sold the 160-acre London Psychiatric Hospital to a London-based apartment developer, Old Oak Properties, for $17 million.

The government’s news release also stated: “The City of London has an approved plan for the redevelopment and reuse of this property which includes a large mixed-use community with a residential, transit, heritage, open space and academic focus.”

This past December, Ontario’s Minister of Government and Consumer Services, Bill Walker, announced the accelerated sale of 243 surplus government-owned properties that cost “the government millions of tax dollars a year to maintain.”

The London Psychiatric Hospital was on the list of 243, and was certainly one of the more complex properties (if not the most complex) on this list.

In its brief January news release announcing the London sale, Minister Walker stated that four of the London Psychiatric Hospital’s 23 buildings will be protected through an easement with Ontario Heritage Trust, and that the sale will save the government $778,074 annually in maintenance and liability costs.

Reading between the lines of this news release, one can deduce what the Ontario Government will want from a potential disposal of Orillia’s HRC site:

  • Significant dollars for a sale; and
  • The ability to announce that it is saving taxpayers substantial annual operating costs.

If London Psychiatric Hospital was costing $778,074 annually, one can assume that HRC costs more than that annually, perhaps substantially more.

Orillia’s Mayor and City Council should establish a Mayor’s HRC Property Task Force as soon as possible to work with the provincial government to establish a process for repurposing the HRC property in a manner that meets the objectives of the province, the City of Orillia, Orillia Centre for Arts + Culture (formerly Huronia Cultural Campus) and other interested parties, including the Ontario Provincial Police.

The Orillia Centre for Arts + Culture has been advocating for more than four years that HRC should be repurposed in part as an international centre for arts and culture that would attract significant investment dollars, jobs and visitors.

In the early 2000s, the then Orillia Mayor and City Council established the Orillia Mayor’s University Task Force. This was a necessary step that led to the arrival of Lakehead University’s Orillia campus.

The provincial  government’s goals have been outlined above. The City of Orillia will want to protect and open up the 5,000 feet of HRC shoreline, and protect environmentally sensitive wetlands on the property, all without assuming the current annual operating costs.

A possible outcome of such consultation would be the City of Orillia issuing a Request for Proposals to major developers. In such a Request, the City would set out certain conditions, such as:

  • No development of the shoreline;
  • Protection of identified heritage buildings; and
  • Development of an international centre for arts and culture.

Examples abound of such real estate developments.

Daniels Waterfront City of the Arts in Toronto is just one. The Mirkopoulos group of companies, no strangers to Orillia, provides other examples. As well as developing the Tudhope Building and Orillia Central School in Orillia, they are the largest film studio operators in North America.

An unknown that hovers in the background is the OPP’s interest in the HRC property.

Co-operation between the City and the provincial government should conclude, sooner rather than later, if the OPP has an effective veto regarding disposal of the HRC property. OPP Headquarters is across the street from the HRC property, and the OPP has been known to use from time to time the large HRC Administration Building for sensitive operations.

This may be a reason why the HRC property did not make it on to the Ontario government’s December list of 243 surplus properties, while the London Psychiatric Hospital did. But perhaps another reason is that the City of London had an approved plan in place for the redevelopment of that property. The City of Orillia has no similar plan in place for HRC.

Another reason for the City and the provincial government to move quickly on this file is the recently released response from Federal Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism, Pablo Rodriguez, to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage’s report on Cultural Hubs and Districts in Canada. Excerpts from the Minister’s response include the following:

“The repurposing of vacant or underutilized buildings represents an opportunity to increase the number of cultural hubs in Canadian communities of all sizes…”

“The Government of Canada will continue to support established models and explore new approaches to ensure that the next generation of Canadian creators have access to spaces and hubs that suit the needs of artists, innovators and audiences.”

In short, the federal government has budgeted funds to develop creative hubs in Canada.

If anyone can think of a greater opportunity for a new creative hub in Canada than the HRC property, which one day might emulate the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, located in a city with Orillia’s proximity to the GTA, and its position on Ontario’s highway grid, please speak up.

Anderson Charters
Orillia
 (The views in this letter are his, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Orillia Centre for Arts + Culture board of directors)

*******************