Ownership of Oak Bay Lodge will be transferred to the Capital Regional Hospital District from Island Health after it closes in 2019.
The hospital district, which provides the local share of capital funding for health facilities and equipment, has no plans for the site, but the land transfer includes a covenant that it must be used for the public good. The hospital district, whose board members are Capital Regional District board members, will work with Oak Bay council in developing ideas for the site.
Oak Bay Mayor Nils Jensen said the transfer will provide the community with an opportunity to consider what should happen to the space.
“It’s a very important area of Oak Bay and careful consideration has to be given to ensure that it’s the right use that’s in keeping with the surrounding neighbourhood,” he said, noting that the area is residential.
Late last year, the hospital district board unanimously agreed to borrow up to $30 million to build supportive housing — as health facilities — for the chronically homeless, provided the province agreed to match the funds.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps believes the Oak Bay Lodge site would be an excellent candidate for redevelopment for social housing.
“A CRD-owned property is an easy one because the ownership structure is such that the CRD can do the work, basically, as the developer,” Helps said.
Jensen said all options should be considered.
“I don’t think at this point we should take any of the options off the table,” he said.
Built in 1972 as a private retirement home for senior citizens, the five-storey building at 2251 Cadboro Bay Rd. has two patient wings with a central connecting wing. The building was converted to a long-term care facility in the early 1980s and currently provides 235 residential care beds.
In 2012, Oak Bay council refused to allow variances that would have seen Oak Bay Lodge replaced with a 320-bed, $80-million seniors care facility. Approval of the variances would have allowed a six-storey complex-care development to be built on the site.
Baptist Housing and the Vancouver Island Heath Authority had wanted to replace the outdated 243-bed seniors facility with one that offered complex care.
In January 2015, Island Health and the hospital district announced plans to build a 320-bed facility called the Summit at Quadra Village on the former Blanshard Elementary School playing field at 995 Hillside Ave.
The care home will replace two aging facilities: Oak Bay Lodge and the 73-unit Mount Tolmie Hospital, built in 1964, on Richmond Road in Saanich.
The hospital district bought the former Blanshard Elementary School property from the Greater Victoria School District in 2015 for $5.8 million, consolidating the land with the 1.4-hectare property at 955 Hillside Ave. it had bought two years earlier.
