New 220-room Larga Baffin residence proposed for Upper Hunt Club
"From Day 1, Larga has been growing. We're exceeding our ability to provide accommodation to our clients who come from Nunavut."
Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Dec 09, 2021 • 10 hours ago • 3 minute read
Larga Baffin, the home away from home for hundreds of Inuit visiting Ottawa for medical care, is planning a move to a new, 220-room complex to be built in Upper Hunt Club.
The corporation has submitted a development application to the city for a 1.9-hectare site on Hunt Club Road at Sieveright Avenue, just east of Bank Street. The six-story structure could house as many as 350 people in four wings off a central core. The complex would both surface and underground parking.
Larga Baffin has been operating in Ottawa since 2000, first in two houses on Russell Road before moving to larger building on Richmond Road in 2009. Since 2015, it has been housed in a former seniors’ residence at the intersection of Carling Avenue and Richmond Road. The current building has 103 rooms and can house 195 people, but is still overflowing, Larga Baffin president Malaya Zehr said.
“From Day 1, Larga has been growing,” Zehr said. “We’re exceeding our ability to provide accommodation to our clients who come from Nunavut. We’re having to put clients into hotels because we just don’t have room. And the demand for services isn’t slowing down.”
Clients come from all over the Arctic to Ottawa to receive specialized medical care that’s not available in the North.
“Some may be here for cancer treatment, or for the Heart Institute or for specialized doctors appointments in Ottawa,” Zehr said. “They might be here for a couple of days, a couple of weeks, a few months or even up to a year.”
The development application was submitted by Fotenn Planning and Larga Baffin, which is itself 100-per cent Inuit-owned by the Nunasi and Qikiqtaaluk corporations.
Residents in the Upper Hunt Club say they were caught off-guard by the proposal and have started a petition in protest, citing increased traffic, noise and pollution concerns, as well as worries about community safety.
“I live 80 metres away. It will impact me in a massive way,” Sarah Rahme said. Rahme and her husband and their newborn baby moved into the community four months ago. They learned about the Larga Baffin project from a neighbour.
“We were horrified that the city did not bother consulting us,” Rahme said. “This is a massive 350-bed hospital project. What do you think is going to be the impact on our small, family-friendly community in terms of safety? Of security? Of overwhelming traffic?
“This project is completely incongruent with an insulated community like Upper Hunt Club (which is) made up of detached single houses. We spent our life savings to be able to afford this house in an environment that we thought would be suitable to raise our children.”
Among the concerns is the limited green space in the area, especially for Inuit in need of nature and healing. Rahme says she isn’t worried about those who criticize the opposition as NIMBYism.
“They can say what they want. This isn’t about who is going to be living there. It’s about the number of people who will be living there.”
Gloucester-Southgate Ward Coun. Diane Deans says she’s heard from residents, both those who oppose the development and those who say it will have a positive impact on the community. Deans said she would host a public information session about the proposal in January.
Zehr said Larga Baffin worked hard to forge a good relationship with its current west-end community and had help from Ottawa police to ensure safety and security for clients, staff and neighbours.
“Our doors are open to have that engagement. We’re not here to invade their space. We’re here to provide service for our clients who are coming from the North for medical service,” she said.
“We want people to understand where they’re coming from, that they’re coming thousands and thousands of miles from their homes. But at the same time we want to engage with the community around here. We want them to understand our culture.”
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...pper-hunt-club
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