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Sale of old Pineview Terrace to help fund new facility

May 4, 2015 | 6:29 AM

Money from the sale of the old Pinevew Terrace Lodge will be used to pay outstanding local funding for capital (infrastructure) investment of the new Pineview.

This decision was approved by the Prince Albert Parkland Regional Health Authority at its Wednesday meeting with one board member, Hugh Otterson, voting against the motion.

There was a shortfall of $284,422 for the new Pineview because some municipalities from the area, both rural and urban, were unable to contribute to the project.  That number was paid off in part by Northern Housing Development pre-amalgamation reserves.

“There was two initiatives to make up that shortfall.  One of them was the use of pre-amalgamation agreement funds from the Northern Housing of approximately $142,000 and the remainder of that shortfall will come from the sale of Pineview,” said CEO Cecile Hunt following the decision Wednesday.

The local share of the facility sits at 20 per cent, a number that dropped from 35 per cent after the provincial government changed policy, “which was welcomed news for all municipalities and the health authorities—trying to reduce the burden at the local level.”

Outstanding local funding for capital (infrastructure) investment according Health Authority board notes

RM of Buckland –              $33, 737
RM of Paddockwood –     $94,992
Village of Albertville –       $10,706
Village of St. Louis –           $41,948
Village of Meath Park –    $17,422
______________________________
 Sub Total                            $198,805
Local Fundraising Proceed  $85,617
                        Total             $284,422

These numbers are based on a 20 per cent local share.

“When we initially did the preparation for the campaign we sought feedback from the municipal government,” she said.  From that it was decided to come up with a figure based on census data.  “So we looked at who were the municipal bodies involved in the northern housing development corporation and that predates 1993 … it was a process most municipalities were comfortable with.”

Hunt said there were many reasons the municipalities could not contribute, and she understands they have their own challenges.

 “Long-term care and Pineview specially serves many people from the across the community of Prince Albert as well as the surrounding municipalities.  Long-term care tends to be very local; people want to stay as close to home as possible,” she said.

“We would hope that future fundraising and future endeavours for future projects, perhaps, can be discussed and commitments made, but we recognize it’ll be project by project and municipality by municipality discussion.”

Hunt wouldn’t say this was unexpected, but admits it has been a long time since the PAPHR has had major construction in the city.

“We respect our partners and we respect the decisions they have to make.  I think that many of these discussions will be also provincial-level discussions because there are projects underway in many other communities, so we’ll wait to see how that evolves.”

The decision is pending approval from the minister of health, but the PAPHR doesn’t anticipate any problems.

sstone@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @sarahstone84