The pandemic has highlighted several weaknesses in our healthcare system as well as the need for reinvestment in the network. Faced with these findings, the Ordre des urbanistes du Québec welcomes the government’s desire to build a new hospital center in the Outaouais, a long-awaited project that will help reduce regional inequalities.
This project also represents a perfect opportunity to mark a new era of government exemplary land use planning. Because we know that major public facilities have a structuring effect on our cities and regions. The choice of location for a hospital is in this regard a major gesture, with significant impacts not only on the health network, but also on transportation habits, urban development, the cost of municipal infrastructure, greenhouse gas emissions and the environment in general.
Aware of these far-reaching impacts, a significant number of Outaouais organizations and individuals have taken a stand in favor of a site in downtown Gatineau. We can only welcome this mobilization; the fact that the population feels challenged is proof that a real culture of land use planning is emerging in Quebec. Without campaigning for a specific site, we would like to add our voice to this important debate.
Public transport
For the Order of Urban Planners, it is imperative that land use planning and sustainable mobility considerations be at the heart of the evaluation of potential sites. Let’s be clear, the Order recognizes that the health network must deal with a variety of requirements, and we do not pretend to decide for it. But, in 2022, it is essential that such an infrastructure be located in a place highly accessible by public transport, which promotes the rationalization of costs for urban infrastructures and which consolidates already urbanized environments, rather than participating in the sprawl urban. At the time of the climate crisis, it is no longer enough to invoke urgency to evacuate considerations of sustainable development, mobility and planning.
In January 2021, the Government of Quebec launched a national conversation on urban planning and land use planning, with the objective of providing Quebec with a national policy in this area. During this conversation, the government itself acknowledged that its interventions in our territory have not always been consistent and exemplary. In this context, the decision of the site of the new hospital center represents a first opportunity for him to assume a leadership role and to make a gesture concretizing his desire to do things differently. If the government does not show the way, how can we demand better from municipalities, developers and citizens?
Finally, this dossier highlights the need to complete the National Policy on Architecture and Land Use Planning as well as to adopt a strategy for the location of public buildings in tune with today’s best practices. The government must set guidelines for framing these choices in the future, in full transparency, as an integral part of a new social contract. Our territory is precious, and today’s choices will have long-term impacts on it. Let’s put all the conditions in place to be able to bequeath to future generations cities and regions that will make us proud.