Victoria Village’s new long-term care facility will likely be located on one of two parcels of land being incorporated into its downtown Barrie properties.
“Within our mission and vision, all of the site will be institutional use like long-term care, housing for seniors, support services for seniors, so it’s all going to be that type of use,” said William Krever, Victoria Village president and chief executive officer.
Last March, Ontario’s Ministry of Long-Term Care announced funding for the additional long-term care beds at the Ross Street facility in downtown Barrie, which already has 128 long-term care beds, 57 life-lease suites and 16 seniors residential units.
To facilitate the new long-term care beds, Victoria Village will apply to rezone 150 Toronto St., which is situated on a quarter-acre, and 54 Ross St., at 1.14 acres for a total of almost 1.4 acres, for institutional use.
“We just wanted to have the whole site zoned in a continuous pattern,” Krever told BarrieToday. “The only thing that’s been confirmed at this point is we’ve been approved for a second long-term care home, another 128 beds on the site.
“We haven’t quite decided where it would go on the site, but it would most likely be one of those two parcels," he added. "I would say within a year would be our time frame when we would hope to start construction, with all going well.”
These two land parcels are vacant, with limited existing tree coverage, and 54 Ross St., is the site of the former Central United Church, which was bought by Victoria Village in 2015 and demolished in 2019.
Victoria Village, which opened in 2003, is located on the old Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) site. When it was determined RVH had outgrown its space, the City of Barrie saw a need to redevelop the property to support the increasing senior population.
In 1997, RVH, which is now called Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre, moved to its current Georgian Drive location and the deed for the Ross Street property was transferred to the city for $1.
Krever said there’s no question about the need for long-term care beds.
“There’s a great demand,” he said. “We have probably a five-year waiting list, about 5,000, 6,000 seniors on our waiting list now. There’s just such a demand for beds right now.”
The purpose of the proposed zoning-bylaw amendment application is to rezone 54 Ross St. and 150 Toronto St. from residential multiple dwelling second density and institutional to institutional with special provisions.
As Krever said, this would extend the existing institutional zoning for Victoria Village and provide consistent zoning across all its land.
A development concept has not been completed at this time and the rezoning application has not yet been received by the city, so this matter is considered to be in the pre-consultation stage. These properties are designated for institutional use in Barrie’s Official Plan.
A neighbourhood meeting was held in early 2021.
“Now the city has asked for some additional studies to be done and documents, so we’re just going through that right now with the city so it could probably be about May before some of those needs can be met, and then hopefully it could go forward,” Krever said of the project.
For more on Victoria Village, visit victoriavillage.ca.
