Freideskburg Hospital Redevelopment: everyone must be able to see a tree from their window

6 June 2024

One of the best ways to understand a city is to get out and amongst it with industry professionals and government representatives.

So a big thanks to ARUP for pulling together an impressive group for an afternoon ride around the city. Experiencing peak hour riding in a bike city is something that stay with you!

One stop on the ride was a former hospital site in Freideskburg

It was inspiring to see a development do a few key things in one place.

Not only did the development adaptively reuse the heritage of an old hospital site but it did a great job of embedding social housing into the development. 25% of housing will be social housing and there will be other affordable housing options too.

It is also focused on keeping it many mature trees, with the deputy mayor who joined us on the ride that there is a local policy that “No tree over 25 years can be cut down”

In addition, she mentioned another wonderfully simple but game changing policy that “everyone must be able to see a tree from their window.”

With these policies of heritage preservation, lots of social and affordable housing and a focus on greening the Freideskburg hospital has the making of a great development.