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Today's CB Post

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Bed time for nursing home
Northside Guest Home can acquire acre of land from Munro Park in exchange for funding improvements

By Chris Shannon
the Cape Breton Post

SYDNEY — The Northside Guest Home will be able to acquire one acre of land from Munro Park in exchange for funding some improvements to the North Sydney green space, including a revamped boardwalk.

Monday’s decision by the Cape Breton Regional Municipality’s corporate services committee came as a relief to the nursing home board’s vice-chair Karen Ralph.

“We’re very happy with the way the process has gone and we look to move forward with the additional beds,” she said, following the committee’s unanimous vote to allow a piece of the 11-acre park to be used in its proposed expansion of 39 beds.

The request for the long-term-care beds by the Northside Guest Home came as part of an announcement by the Department of Health in early 2006. The nursing home’s expansion is not related to the provincial government’s decision last Thursday to add another 832 long-term-care beds into the health-care system.

It was an allotment of 100 beds, in which 64 of the beds were designated as Level 2 nursing home and respite care for facilities in Sydney, Glace Bay or North Sydney.

Although the municipality is onboard with the estimated $7-9-million project, it’s far from a done deal, Ralph said.

“We’re going through the criteria of that process to add 39 beds to our guest home. We’re waiting for a decision from the Department of Health.”

It’s unclear when the province will arrive at a decision of which facilities receive the beds but Ralph expects it could come within the next two months. It would allow the nursing home to break ground this year.

Monday’s vote to permit the project to go ahead came after weeks of attempting to reach a compromise between the Northside Guest Home and the Friends of the Waterfront Society committee.

At a corporate services committee meeting Jan. 8, Friends of the Waterfront spokesperson Mike MacNeil said there was no room to negotiate because they feared the atmosphere of the park would be lost if the development went ahead on municipally owned park land.

“It’s designed just to suit themselves and it shouldn’t happen,” MacNeil said at the time of the volunteer nursing home board.

The issue created a controversy in the community and resulted in people writing about 20 letters to the editor of this newspaper, both for and against the proposal.

North Sydney Coun. Gordon MacLeod was initially against the plan to expand because of a deal made with the former town of North Sydney in 1995 to stop the nursing home from encroaching on Munro Park.

However, shortly after the Jan. 8 meeting MacLeod developed a plan in partnership with the Friends of the Waterfront and municipal staff.

He said there were two compelling reasons to allow the expansion to proceed — one being the Northside Guest Home is the only facility on the Northside to qualify for an expansion in this phase of the province’s plan for more long-term-care beds; and the second is the plan will make Munro Park a better recreation space.


The two-storey complex, with 43,000 square feet of space, could also create 72 permanent full-time positions.

During Monday’s meeting, MacLeod said his plan received a “strong consensus” from both groups.

“I think we developed a plan that meets both needs (of Munro Park and the Northside Guest Home),” he told the committee.

The property, which is appraised at $50,000, will be deemed as surplus to the CBRM and sold to the nursing home as long as several conditions are met.

Those include the relocation of a portion of the boardwalk, rebuilding a mini soccer field in a new location, paving Munro Park’s parking lot and council passing an amendment to the municipal planning strategy that will allow for this development on park land.

Council will also instruct the CBRM planning advisory committee to carry out the necessary public participation process.