Au Château's $120M redevelopment plan "not feasible"
Au Château's $120M redevelopment plan "not feasible"
City-owned LTC home's licences are set to expire in 2025 while renovation plans indefinitely on hold.
“We cannot further burden taxpayers to the tune of $120 million. It just isn’t fair.” - Au Château Administrator, Jacques Dupuis
This month, Au Château celebrates its 60th anniversary. The local long-term care home first opened its doors in 1964 and today has 162 beds to service the aging population.
As the municipally owned and managed facility celebrates a worthy milestone it must also reflect on the incredibly pressing issue of it’s long-term survivability.
For over a decade now, Au Château and the municipality have been planning an important redevelopment project. Au Château not only wants to bring its ageing infrastructure to modern standards, it must. However recent discussions by the board of management indicate that renovating this municipal asset is simply not feasible.
In Ontario, long-term care homes are categorized by the building standards that they meet. There are four basic categories: A, B, C and D.
Class A beds are those that have been built to 1998 nursing home standards while B and C beds are those built to 1972 standards. D beds are those that did not even meet the standards of the 1972 Nursing Homes Act Regulation but were upgraded in the last decades to meet the minimum standards today.
Au Château’s 162 beds unfortunately fall under the C classification. One of many factors putting Au Chateau out of date, is that all residents must now have access to their own bathroom. Many rooms at Au Château’s don’t conform to this standard among others.
The Board of Management last discussed this matter a few months ago and they decided to put the project on hold. A memo from the organization’s administrator, Jacques Dupuis, indicated that ten years ago, the project was estimated at around $40 million but today that price has tripled to $120 million.
He closed his memo by attempting to reassure the stakeholders that they are not giving up but “simply putting this project on the backburner until conditions improve.”
Licences Set to Expire in 2025
However the board may not be able to put this project on the backburner for very long.
Out of the 78,000 LTC beds in Ontario, there are 26,531 beds that remain classified as B or C. These licences will expire on June 30, 2025. In 2021 the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario (FAOO) indicated that the province had allocated 15,918 beds for redevelopment, leaving an estimated 13,764 B and C class bed licences that do not have redevelopment plans and will expire next year.
When the FAOO issued their report on the matter in 2021, they stated that the province would have to upgrade the remaining 13,764 B and C beds (including Au Château’s) by 2025 but also noted that “alternatively, the Province could decide to permanently take these beds out of service and reduce its supply of long-term care beds.”.
Obviously the province cannot afford to lose LTC beds. According to the Ontario Long-Term Care Home Association over 43,000 people are currently waiting for long-term care and these wait lists have nearly doubled in the last 10 years. While there are currently 78,000 long-term care spaces in Ontario, the data indicates that the province needs at least 30,000 more beds to meet the current demand and 48,000 more beds by 2029.
The Ontario government recently helped North Bay start construction on a new LTC home. Casselhome started construction on their redevelopment in 2022. That project is estimated to cost $122 million and will be paid for by a combination of provincial and municipal funding. Luckily for North Bay, they share the cost of Casselhome with 8 other partner municipalities and the province is picking up a large portion of the tab. Out of the proposed $6 million per year needed to finance the new 264-bed facility, North Bay taxpayers will only be on the hook for about $1 million a year in levies.
Au Château and the West Nipissing Budget
Compared to North Bay, West Nipissing taxpayers contribute significantly more to long-term care. Out of their nearly 110$ million budget, only $2.6 million of North Bay’s operating expenses go to Casselhome (2.3%).
In contrast, West Nipissing allocated $2.28 million of their $32 million budget to Au Château in 2024 (7%).
Financing a $120 million plan similar to North Bay could significantly increase this figure. And that would only be if we got as good of a partnership deal with the province.
In his latest memo Dupuis added that “we must keep in mind that Au Chateau is owned by its member municipalities and any costs not funded by higher levels of government would fall on local taxpayers. We cannot further burden taxpayers to the tune of $120 million. It just isn’t fair.”
West Nipissing’s total debt load as of 2024 is $15 million. The cost to finance this debt is approximately $218k per year. Even a portion of an additional $120 million loan would add heavy strain on the city’s already stretched finances.
It may just be as the administrator stated: not feasible. With the cost today to build and maintain a long-term care home, many wonder if such a small municipality should even be in the business. With a population of roughly 15,000, this new facility could cost each man, women and child over $8,000 to build.
In 2023, the Globe and Mail reported that four long-term care homes in Toronto opted to simply sell their facilities because of facing expiring beds by June 2025. They were in the same predicament as Au Château.
One thing is certain. The 162 current and future residents of Au Château need a plan. If the city cannot afford this home, someone must. The board may have to consider other options which may include restructuring the organization. Because as it stands now, there is no plan and the future of the 162 beds are in jeopardy.
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