Larga Baffin facility hearing enters final day after dismissal rejected

UPDATE: After the hearing ended, the Upper Hunt Club Community Association issued a statement saying it "formally denounces the inflammatory allegations of racism and bigotry as being unfounded, with concerned citizens' comments being repeatedly cited out of context and distorted. These attacks, along with character disparaging comments during the appeal, were meant to distract from the real matters at issue."

An Ontario Land Tribunal hearing around a new purpose-built medical boarding home for Inuit will push into its fourth and final day, despite attempts by its owners to have the appeal dismissed. 

Larga Baffin, an Inuit-owned company which provides health care in Ottawa for people from Nunavut, wants to build a new facility near the airport. 

City council approved the plan last summer, but it's been delayed by a zoning appeal.

The Upper Hunt Club Community Association has filed the appeal, citing issues that include parking, traffic mitigation measures and the building's height.

Even before the appeal was filed, tensions had been mounting in the community over the facility. 

Community members raise concerns

The proposal has divided community members, with some voicing concerns about everything from the building's height to the potential for "unlawful" activities after it opens. 

On the first day of the hearing, Larga Baffin lawyer Michael Polowin called the community opposition a display of "bigotry."

Letters from community members to City of Ottawa staff and councillors, submitted by Polowin as an exhibit, expressed unease at the fact the facility was near parks, two residential homes and — in the words of one letter — "areas that are frequented by minors and by seniors."

"There is no good or positive outcome if these vulnerabilities are exposed or exploited," the same letter continues. 

Another letter suggested the facility's medical designation would bring change and new risks to the neighbourhood, "particularly if it is to house drug and addiction treatment-related facilities."

Accusations of bigotry

"Increases in loitering, disturbing gatherings and homeless usage of the Sieveright Park can take place and will deter its use by its current users," the letter said.

During the hearing, Polowin called their viewpoints prejudiced and something he hasn't seen in his decades of practice.

"Honestly, I've seen bigotry in cases. I've been doing this a long time," Polowin said by phone Thursday. "But I've never seen it like that." 

More drama came when Polowin announced at the end of Wednesday — the second day of the hearing — that he'd heard enough and would be asking for the appeal to be dismissed.

In a phone interview, Polowin expanded on that request, saying he felt that the appellant's transportation planner, Robert Vastag, admitted under cross-examination that the appeal was not really about the proposal to build a new facility.

"He not only agreed that the traffic impact of this development would be minimal," Polowin said. "But he agreed that the appellant's position, when finally boiled down, was not about this development. It was about trying to force the city to do something they haven't done yet."

On Thursday morning, however, the tribunal opted to push forward, citing procedural fairness.  

The lawyer for the community association, Joshua Moon, declined to speak about the dismissal request when CBC contacted him on Wednesday and could not be reached for further comment Thursday.

The community association itself has also declined to comment in the past, saying last October that the matter was "in front of the courts."

The City of Ottawa, which also has a lawyer at the hearing, declined to comment Thursday as the tribunal was ongoing.

Closing arguments are scheduled for this morning at 10 a.m.