Belleville General Hospital is looking at expanding its staff parking.
The City of Belleville’s Planning Committee received a notice of complete application from Quinte Health calling for an additional 107 parking spaces for staff at the hospital.
This would bring the total number of parking spots for staff to 209.
It would be an expansion of an already existing site dedicated to staff parking.
In a presentation to the committee, Titus Lee with RFA Planning Consultant Inc. says while capacity at Belleville General Hospital has expanded, the parking spaces have not.
He explained the parking situation as it currently stands.
“There is shared parking for visitors, patients and staff in two lots, Front and Dundas streets, with three additional lots for staff on the east and west sides, as well as the south sides, and these lots are used at different times of the day,” Lee explained to the committee.
“There are also visitors parking on the streets right now due to staff use of the shared lots and the staff entry and exit into the lots is fairly limited to certain hours of the day.”
Councillor Chris Malette said he received a letter from a property owner close to the proposed site of the parking expansion worried about the lighting in the area.
When asked about the plans for lighting, Lee said that there would be little reflection from the lights that would bleed into the property.
Councillor Tyler Allsopp asked how the new parking spots would help to meet the demand and need for staff.
Lee said he was informed that there was a waitlist of over 200 staff looking to get parking and that the expansion would be an interim plan to address the shortfall.
“Staff at Quinte Health do have a plan for additional parking in later years but we see that this is the most economical, as there is already a parking lot on that property with a controlled access gate and that Quinte Health also owns the properties,” Lee told Allsopp.
Dave Pym, Manager of Occupational Health, Safety and Security at Quinte Health, added that the 100 parking spaces doesn’t necessarily equate to 100 staff using those spaces.
“So with continental shifts, people working 12 hours, the usage individually of that parking lot actually doesn’t equate to a ‘one to one.’ It’s more like one to sometimes two or three,” Pym explained.
“So with the addition of 100 spaces, we may take 200 staff off that waitlist … depends on the amount of staff that are working straight days versus the amount of time staff are working nights and afternoons.”
Committee member Sarita Van Dyke asked of the possibility of adding to the existing parking with underground or layered parking to address having staff and patients not having to walk from a further distance to get into the hospital.
James Hildebrand, Director of Redevelopment for Quinte Health, says there would be difficulties in doing that.
“This is something that the Ministry of Health would not fund, so it would be self-funded completely. It would never pay for itself in terms of charging people enough for it. So again, it just ends up being a very cost-prohibitive approach to doing it and harder to maintain for the long term,” Hildebrand explained to the committee.
Following the presentation, one resident did speak in opposition to the plan citing concerns about noise levels around the parking lot.
City staff will deliver a report that will contain input from the public, commenting agencies and municipal departments, to the satisfaction of the Engineering and Development Services Department.
That report will be presented at a future committee meeting.
