Frequently Asked Questions

What type of long-term care will the home provide?

The St. Rita at Marylake Long-Term Care Home will have five, 32-bed Resident Home Areas (RHA) totalling 160 beds. In each of the five RHAs, 16 beds will be dedicated to residents with Responsive Behaviour, and the other 16 beds will be dedicated to short stay respite residents and those requiring dialysis. The St. Rita at Marylake Long-Term Care Home will proactively offer treatments to offset emergency department transfers, have full-time Nurse Practitioners on-site, offer improved chronic disease management programs, provide a robust medication management program, and deliver supportive end-of-life care. Modern technologies will also be used to improve resident care and improve efficiency.

Will the St Rita Long-Term Care Home be built on the site of the current monastery?

Building on the footprint of the current building is the most environmentally responsible way to complete the project, ensuring that there is no environmental impact as a result of the new long-term care home. 

The Augustinians consider themselves the stewards of the environment at Marylake today as they have for the past 70 years. Improving on the current building will allow Marylake to address current challenges related to aging infrastructure that is decaying, energy inefficient, and has failing water and septic systems.

If a long-term care home is built at Marylake, how will community members without a car visit their family in the facility? Wouldn’t a project like this be better suited in town?

Unfortunately, there is no land available in town for such a facility. The search for affordable land to build a modern long-term care home for King’s seniors has been a years-long process and the Marylake Campus is the ideal location to develop a modern, affordable, accessible long-term care home. The St Rita at Marylake Long-Term Care Home will be adjacent to a residential suburb and will be uniquely located very close to town while still providing a peaceful, natural setting that will benefit the region’s seniors.

There is also an existing bus route that runs on Keele St. for those without cars. York Region Transit has informed the Augustinian Fathers that the Keele St. route can easily be changed to accommodate a stop at Marylake so that families can visit their loved ones even if they do not have access to a car.

Is the site zoned for this type of development? Will it need to be re-zoned?

King Township has formally recognized zoning of the site for long-term care based on the historic delivery of such services at the Marylake Campus. The project is recognized as an expansion of an existing institutional use in accordance with section 6(4) of the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan and is permitted by Zoning by-law 74-53.

The project does not involve, nor has it ever involved, re-zoning. The zoning already permits the use, and only site plan approval and the appropriate building permit are required and being sought.