Arnprior senior home expansion may affect hawk habitat

ARNPRIOR – Arnprior resident Russ Corbett says the proposed Grove Nursing Home expansion will have a negative impact on the red-shoulder hawk habitat in the Gillies Grove old-growth forest.

The Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT) has scheduled a one-day case management conference on an intervention filed by the Dan Street resident against the Grove Nursing Home Expansion.

Town Councillor Dan Lynch says the matter won’t be heard by the LPAT until the Fall.

The meeting will be held at Arnprior Town Hall. Corbett maintains the red-shoulder hawk habitat in Gilles Grove would be adversely affected by the fifty-bed expansion to the Grove home. He spoke with us following the Town of Arnprior’s April 9th Council session to outline his concerns.

He says the hawk needs about 400 metres of forest around the nest to make its home, and expansion will eliminate that buffer.

Councillor Lynch says the outcome of the case management conference is critical. Opportunity for settlement or resolution of the dispute is the goal of the LPAT case management conference.