The owners of residential senior care homes are calling for changes to city building rules for the facilities, to allow for more space.
According to a city bylaw, care homes in residential areas can only take up 40 per cent of the lot. The rest of the land must be dedicated to parking and a back and front yard.
Safal Suryavanshi, manager of Warm ‘n’ Cozy Care, said most seniors don’t often use the yard because of their sensitivity to weather. Suryavanshi said it would be more practical if they could build on more than 40 per cent of the lot.
“We also have to remember there are 15 residents but they're also using wheelchairs or walkers so that almost takes the space of 30 people,” he told CTV News.
Suryavanshi wrote a letter to the mayor, addressing his concerns about space.
It follows plans to develop a Warm ‘n’ Cozy Care home in the Brighton neighbourhood – where the lot sizes are even smaller than the current facility locations.
“We think it's not sufficient we cannot provide what we want to provide to our seniors,” the care home manager said.
Owner Sudhir Suryavanshi said the end goal is to improve seniors’ quality of life by providing them with more space.
“We would love to have a bigger elevator, because when the guys come from the hospital to take someone it’s very hard on them,” he said.
“We’re thinking of the betterment of our seniors.”
The city received the letter in a meeting on Monday and have referred the matter to administration.
“The Administration will consider the questions and concerns expressed in the letter and reply in due course,” Lesley Anderson, the city’s director of planning wrote in a statement.
“We also expect to look at the zoning requirements for these types of uses.”
