A piece of property on Stevenson Street that a local businessman wanted to turn into a long-term care facility for seniors has been put up for sale.
Probash Mondal said he is “very” frustrated in his attempt to build an eight-storey, 242-unit long-term care facility.
“Yes, it’s for sale,” Mondal told GuelphToday. The asking price is $649,000.
“We’re disheartened and disillusioned in the city’s ability to make long-term care come to fruition,” said Mondal.
“The only hurdle is Guelph city red tape.”
The location is a 1.54-acre parcel of land adjacent to the former IMICO site on the east side of Stevenson Street.
The city told Mondal a year ago that the land did not have the correct zoning and it would possibly be years before that might be changed.
Emails sent to Mondal by the city detailed the situation from the city’s standpoint, telling him that the property was currently designated in the city’s Official Plan as “employment lands” and that changing that designation to residential would only be considered following an ongoing Comprehensive Municipal Review.
That review is into year two of a three-year process.
Mondal, who owns several medical imaging clinics in Guelph, wanted to break ground in March.
“I want to build it in The Ward,” Mondal told GuelphToday. “I want to make a difference in that community.
“I keep getting kiboshed,” he said.
Bill Birdsell, Mondal's planning consultant, previously pointed out that the seniors facility would supply the kind of employment that the zoning is supposed to provide. That it seemed wrong that a strip plaza employing a handful of people could be built but a facility that would employ many more could not.\
Had he known it would be so difficult to build the facility in that location, he probably would have looked elsewhere in the city, Mondal said.
“We found out very late in the game with the city, otherwise we probably would have looked at a different site altogether.
That remains a possibility.
“We’re open to having those discussions,” he said of possible other locations.
