Over the next couple of decades a new community will grow and blossom right in the heart of the Municipality of Central Elgin.
A “complete, connected and sustainable community,” stresses Central Elgin Mayor Andrew Sloan.
The driving force behind the redevelopment is the need to accommodate the housing requirements of the projected 3,000 employees at the new $7B Volkswagen PowerCo battery facility scheduled to open in 2027.
Wednesday evening at a public open house, Central Elgin residents had the opportunity to provide their input into the future of the 416-acre site that housed the former St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital. A rare opportunity to create “a complete, thriving and inclusive community,” adds Sloan.
The hospital was opened in 1939 and St. Joseph’s Health Care in London assumed control in 1997 as part of the reorganization initiative ordered by the Health Care Restructuring Commission.
It closed once the Southwest Centre for Forensic Mental Health Care opened in 2013.
The land is now owned by the province, explained Sloan.
The province has not yet determined the process to be adopted for sale of the land.
The municipality earlier this year approved Draft Policy Directions and Land Use Plan and Sloan would love to see shovels in the ground within the next couple of years.
In the next decade there is the need to look at an expanded regional hospital to serve St. Thomas and the County of Elgin and Sloan advised a tract of land has been earmarked for institutional use.
The plan proposed by the municipality envisions a walkable, transit-ready community built around four key elemente: the Sunset Institutional Corridor, a Downtown Mainstreet, residential neighbourhoods and a connected street network.
As for next steps, Sloan advised feedback from the open house will be presented to council and “I think we’re going to find out in the next, what I would like to say is the short term, we’re going to find out what the arrangement will be with the province on next steps.”
Written by Ian McCallum
