The Rose Garden Hospice is hoping to trade a portion of its land to the city in exchange for lowered or eliminated servicing and development levy fees.
The hospice is set to appear before councillors during Monday’s executive committee meeting to propose the land swap as a way of offsetting some of the construction costs.
The Hospice Association hopes to break ground and begin construction this year, despite not having raised the entire $4 million they had hoped for. The fear is that if they delay for another year or longer, the construction cost will continue to rise and the promised operating funding from the province will be withdrawn.
The hospice is named after the late Rose Daschuk, who passed away in the hospital after a battle with cancer. Her family has been working to get a hospice built in her name to provide a more dignified way to die and to take pressure off of the acute care system.
In 2019, the project got a big boost in the form of a $500,000 pledge from local philanthropist Malcolm Jenkins and the promise of up to $1.2 million in annual operational funding from the province.
Fundraising began in earnest. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, made that more difficult, and as it sits today, the association is more than $1 million from its goal.
“Every cent we get we have to get from donations,” said Don Daschuk, who was Rose’s husband.
“We are in the position where if we don’t do something, we are in jeopardy of losing our provincial money for operations. We had to act right away to show that we’re moving forward.”
Daschuk, who heads up the building committee, said the project went out to tender last summer but came back way over budget. In response, the facility was redesigned, with vinyl wall coverings changed to painted walls, the front entrance redesigned and the full basement taken out.
“It’s functional but nice,” he said.
“We went back to tender in March and it came in on budget. That’s when the prices of materials started going crazy.”
Subcontractors, though, came to the rescue.
“They said, ‘we absolutely love this project. We will hold our pricing if we know it’s going to go ahead right away,” Daschuk said.
Faced with ballooning construction costs and a possible withdrawal of their operating grant if they didn’t start construction, the hospice association decided to move ahead with the project, despite being short on pledges needed to fund the entire facility.
“We just had to go out on a leap of faith.”
Now, the hospice is looking at other ways to lower the cost of construction.
According to their presentation to the city, they owe $100,737 for surface works- such as the roadway, curbing and landscaping, $148,035 for servicing and underground utilities and a development levy of 106,812.18 per hectare.
Another problem faced by the hospice is many of their donations to date are spread over a five-year term.
They’re proposing to trade the costs of servicing and development levies on its 10-acre lot for a 1.88-acre parcel of land along the rotary trail, land reserved in their approved development permit for greenspace.
Their hope is to use that space for a park, with the city developing whatever it feels appropriate, whether leaving it as greenspace or adding a small playground. The proposal has the support of neighbouring housing developments. The proposal is also supported by Marilyn Elmer, the daughter of late Fred Trach. Trach donated the land the hospice, and now proposed park, are to be located on.
“My father … would be thrilled with the idea of children playing in the park and people sharing a bench, having a quiet conversation with coffee in hand,” Elmer wrote.
“He would be so happy for the Daschuks to achieve their long-held dream, appropriately honouring Rose.
“We need help from them,” Daschuk said. “We want to partner with them. We want to get our heads together and say ‘ what can we do to move this forward. We don’t have anything that we can offer the city other than land. If they could help us with giving us a break on the costs or doing this trade, we’re open to anything.”
Forgiving the fees would allow more of the existing funds to go towards construction costs to get the project underway, Daschuk said.
“The hope is that the city can see the same things that we see. They’ve been very supportive of us in the past, so we’re hoping for great things.”
Monday’s meeting gets going at 4 p.m. at city hall and will be streamed live to Youtube.
