The site will become home to a new centre for children and youth living with health complexity.
This is a critical milestone, and a requirement by the City for the project to move forward.
The Slocan site sits in the heart of the residential neighbourhood of Renfrew-Collingwood, and is zoned RS-1. This zoning is generally used for areas of single-family homes and duplexes.
The site has been used for health-care since 1912, when it was first purchased by the City of Vancouver for an isolation hospital. Over the years, new buildings were added as the facility transitioned to a tuberculosis preventorium, and eventially to the Sunny Hill Health Centre. Sunny Hill moved to the BC Children’s Hospital Oak Street campus in 2020. Each of these new developments on the site were approved under a conditional hospital use within the residential (RS-1) zoning.
The City advised BC Children’s and PHSA that the site should be rezoned to accommodate the new redevelopment. This means that a specific bylaw (CD-1) will be written for the site. A CD-1 zoning is most appropriate for a health-care use and provides the most future flexibility.
The rezoning approval allows the project team to submit a development permit to the City, which is the next step in getting the facility built. The development permit will include a more refined design of the building and landscape.
Demolition of the existing building on site is likely to begin in the fall of 2023, and construction will start in 2025.
