Proposed centre one step closer after approval by community committee

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This article was published 13/11/2018 (2663 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The city’s Assiniboia Community Committee burned the candle at both ends Tuesday during a marathon session that lasted nearly eight hours and saw the sitting councillors cast their final votes well past midnight.

As a result of those votes, the Oake family has moved one step closer to making their dream of building an addiction recovery centre in honour of their late son a reality.

Rezoning and conditional use applications were both given the green light by the committee early Wednesday morning, which marks an important step forward for the proposed Bruce Oake Recovery Centre.

“When Bruce died, addiction was already at a crisis stage; now it is a full-blown epidemic. We all know what meth is doing to this city. In many ways, it is tearing it apart,” Scott Oake said at the meeting.

“It has been a long and arduous journey to get this far, but it’s been worth it, because every day we feel that we move closer to building the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre… We are leaving a generation of addicts out there to die. We must do better.”

The $14-million, 50-bed, long-term recovery centre is being spearheaded by the Oake family, led by Hockey Night in Canada broadcaster Scott Oake. They plan to name the facility in honour of their son Bruce, who died of a heroin overdose in 2011 at the age of 25.

Political rookie Coun. Kevin Klein (Charleswood-Tuxedo), alongside veteran Couns. Janice Lukes (Waverley West) and Scott Gillingham (St. James), voted unanimously in favour of the applications.

The City of Winnipeg urban planning division had given its stamp of approval to both applications in advance of the vote.

The matter will now move onto the Standing Policy Committee on Property and Development. After that, next steps for the applications will be the Executive Policy Committee followed by a full council vote.

There has been significant debate over the proposed location of the facility — at the site of the former Vimy Arena in Crestview — and Tuesday night was no exception, with both sides coming out in full force to appeal to the trio of councillors.

Proponents said they will welcome the facility into the community with open arms and point to the ongoing meth crisis in Winnipeg as evidence that more drug treatment centres are needed.

Other area residents counter that while they’re not opposed to building more treatment facilities, they don’t want one built in their neighourhood for a number of reasons, including concerns over safety and property values.

MLA Steven Fletcher (Assiniboia) has been a vocal and high-profile critic of the proposed location. He attended the meeting to once again raise concerns over the project and defend area residents opposed to it who he feels have been unfairly demonized.

“The people of St. James are good people, very good people. Some of the proponents have stigmatized and made assertions about the people of St. James that are false. It’s not ‘not in my backyard.’ The people of St. James have legitimate common-sense concerns,” Fletcher said.

“What these families (affected by drug addiction) have gone through is terrible. We don’t wish it on anyone, but empathy should not lead to poor decision making.”

The project was first announced at City Hall in October 2017. Some residents have expressed anger that Mayor Brian Bowman worked behind the scenes for months with the provincial government and the Oake family before disclosing that the former Vimy Arena had been selected as the preferred site.

In January, city council voted in favour of selling the former Vimy Arena to Manitoba Housing for $1 in January. The arena was valued by the City of Winnipeg at $1.4 million.

The province — in turn — plans to lease the site to the Bruce Oake Memorial Foundation, pending final approval of the rezoning and variance applications.

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca

 

Twitter: @rk_thorpe