Hospital-area zoning presents a dilemma

By Medicine Hat News Opinon on August 23, 2018.

A recent zoning decision by Medicine Hat City Council suggests a larger debate is needed regarding land use around the Medicine Hat Regional Hospital.

This is overdue, but delayed for a variety of good reasons. However, a final plan must consider the spectre of major upheaval in commercial real estate landscape.

On Monday, council approved measures to allow a denture clinic to set up shop in a residential house across from the former main entrance of the hospital on Fifth St. S.W.

It came up last year, and was rejected with some controversy, not the least of which is the generally accepted notion that people in residential communities want their communities to remain as such.

This time, discussion after a public hearing touched on just about every issue that seems to bedevil planning decisions in the city, and every aggravation the public holds about economic development.

Coun. Darren Hirsch asked why the city would allow the conversion when there is available and vacant commercial space elsewhere.

Coun. Jamie McIntosh reiterated the need to consider residential character of the area and neighbours’ property values.

Coun. Kris Samraj said use as business facing the hospital complex seems a reasonable use, and lacking direction otherwise, he’d support it.

Coun. Julie Friesen said such a policy is needed.

The applicant stated the location is central to his work and he’d like to pay off his building and say goodbye to lease costs.

Coun. Phil Turnbull, essentially said “Wouldn’t we all?,” but to crack down on home conversions would lead to a crackdown on home-based businesses, and current commercial taxpayers have a case against both.

That is indeed a big alligator to wrestle, so to speak.

But it appears be only getting bigger.

The general feeling is that the commercial real estate market is malaised, and there will only be more oversupply as a current building boom adds major retail and office space elsewhere in the city.

A current recommendation in the city’s reworking of its own municipal development plan states much less commercial space will be needed in the long term due to ecommerce, online selling and delivery services.

Proliferation of home-converted home-based businesses and office condo arrangements all show small business owners are shedding commercial rate leases.

It’s understandable that people feel the need to protect the value of their home and don’t want the community to change.

But, it’s clear that you can’t deny the hospital’s presence (the latest addition totals more than 250,000 square feet), or at this point restrict it.

It’s a long way from what was envisioned 70 years ago when the site was chosen or when developers built houses up to the then-spacious site.

But, it is what it is — an increasingly busy area that’s only going to get busier, and forward-looking planning is needed.

The city’s planning department is holding off on such work, as well as a new area parking study, until the expansion is done.

It would follow a redevelopment plan for the areas surrounding the south and eastern edges of downtown, which largely endorsed current zoning to preserve some low-density residential blocks.

But it also laid out where and what kind of redevelopment could take place.

It was immediately decried by some citizens and business owners for opposite reasons, then reinterpreted by councillors.

The visions of such plans take years, if not decades, to play out however, and are dependent of developers with some vision, and the whole thing begins to fall apart when residents are eventually affected by one way or another.

Housing is not only one of the weightiest financial matters a family grapples with, but also deeply personal.

Adding to the complexity, the area around the hospital is hardly failing, or an obvious target for the bulldozer and redevelopment.

Far from rundown, the area is actually quite quaint less the congestion.

It’s extremely hard, however to write “quaint” as a requirement in legislation, or for anyone to predict the future.