Chestermere City Councillors and city administration had a discussion regarding school site progress during the March 1 Regular Meeting of Council.
After reviewing the action list, councillor Stephen Hanley asked for an update from administration on when a school site progress report will be presented to council. At a previous meeting, council directed administration to provide a school site presentation during the March 1 council meeting, however, it was not on the agenda.
“We met with school boards and the developer on several occasions, it has gone a little bit slower than we would like with trying to get everybody in the same room and go through all of the potential options for the prioritization of the high school site, adjusting the layouts, and looking at the previous rec site, or a combination,” city director of growth and infrastructure Jeff Gibeau said.
City administration has met with the developer to discuss either purchasing the lands or working with the landowners to move the school site to the rec centre site.
In recent meetings, the school site priorities have shifted, and city administration is back to the drawing board.
“The school board wants to stay with the current site the way it is, it’s going backwards on the progress we’ve made on the rec site. We need to get all the developers together, and go through it again with them,” Gibeau said. “Right now, the proposal that we were moving forward on in December and through January, the school board did not support. We have to get everybody back into the room and hash it out again.”
At a previous council meeting, staff was directed to go through alternate locations and had a discussion regarding multiple subdivisions, and the expense and time it would take.
“Recently, we’ve received feedback of the subdivisions is what’s critical, and we’ve reinitiated the subdivisions. It’s time-consuming, and not completely efficient, but we’re trying to respond to councils’ priorities, we’re moving the subdivisions ahead, and finding different siting scenarios,” Gibeau said.
City administration is now going through redevelopment planning exercises working with the school board and developers, revising alternative site locations, and going through the subdivisions.
“All parties involved have expressed significant interest in staying with the current alignment, that’s the recent revelation, and it’s caused us to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to do that, or push forward on a different alignment,” Gibeau said. “We’re in the middle of doing two things, we’re making this a priority, and whatever shakes out, shakes out.”
Hanley expressed that it appears there has been very little progress that has been made since November and reiterated how important getting a school built in Chestermere is for council and to the community.
“Council identified this was a priority issue, we need to get it into the hands of the school board, we have to get the school built there, that’s something the community wants,” Hanley said. “The timeline is very important to us, and expectation of when it will be turned over to the school board for the actual building of the high school.”
Gibeau expressed that based on recent meetings, the team is moving back to the original alignment.
“That’s a challenge for my team to work through. We’re engaging, resetting the process, and going at it again, because this site needs to be created as soon as possible. There’s been a lot of action, but the needle has not moved forward as we desired,” Gibeau said.
The school board has been involved in the process, attended every meeting, and they are aware of where the city is at with school site planning.
For a school site to be established, there is criteria that must to be followed, and city administration have worked to sure they understand and meet the criteria.
“Some alternative alignments were discouraged by the school board because it doesn’t meet the requirements. The school board informed us that the realigned high school site would not meet the requirements, it doesn’t have the double frontage that we need,” Gibeau said. “We’re in the middle of trying to figure out the best solutions, and it’s been challenging dealing with all these parties.”
The development community was supportive. However, they were not incredibly happy about changing locations to major amenities after they marketed, built, and sold developments.
“The school developers are ready to go, the school board said no that doesn’t work. It’s multiple stakeholders,” Gibeau said.
Going forward, the city’s team is moving forward with all stakeholders, working to realign the site, and find a solution.
“I’m very displeased with the action we’ve received. We had very meaningful discussions with the school board and council, and the priority was to get the school site ready,” councillor Mel Foat said. “We’ve spent four months, and we haven’t got any farther than we have before. In my eyes, when we have residents crying for schools, why’s it not done? It needs to get done.”
Following the discussion, council decided to hold an internal workshop to further discuss the project.
