St. Albert city council will soon debate whether space for a new high school will remain part of the site plan for the new recreation centre being designed in the northwest area of the city.
The new rec-centre project, estimated to cost between $80 and $110 million, is currently designed to include an indoor competitive and leisure swimming pool, arena, gym and fitness facility, community meeting space, outdoor bike skills park, pickleball courts, park space, a soccer field, and a baseball or softball diamond, as well as an unattached high school.
Despite council's standing committee of the whole granting the site plan preliminary approval in early July, Coun. Sheena Hughes has since put forward a motion that, if passed, would remove the space currently allotted for the high school, and consequently plan for a new school on the city's Badger Lands located just north Villeneuve Road and west of Hogan Road.
Hughes said if council passes Coun. Mike Killick's motion to add a second arena to the facility plan at the expense of the soccer field or baseball diamond — or both — the high school would have no immediate access to outdoor field space.
“When that motion was put forward I thought about it, and I thought if we take away one of the basic amenities expected ... for high schools because of the versatility that it provides, this is no longer suitable for a high school,” Hughes said.
Killick said a second ice sheet would help meet community demand for ice time.
“Hockey continues to grow in St. Albert, and it's not just hockey, it's ringette and public skating and just looking at it from all of those user groups ... there's a growing need,” Killick said. “It just seemed to me that if we're going to build one sheet of ice, we could get some economies of scale.
“As our population grows ... we're going to need that second sheet of ice.”
Another reason Hughes said she put the motion forward is because of concern about student parking capacity.
“We are not assured that we really have enough parking onsite to handle the needs of that high school,” she said.
Hughes said unlike other high schools in the city such as Bellerose and Paul Kane, where student parking can overflow into surrounding neighbourhoods, a high school located west of Ray Gibbon Drive won't have surrounding neighbourhoods until further development of Cherot takes place.
“If we were to put it there, from a perspective of parking or walking, it's an island because we have Cherot but that's going to be quite a distance away," Hughes said. "So the odds are that the overflow would go into the (rec-centre's) parking lot, and if the city says we don't want (students parking in the facility's space), then the students are all going to be ticketed for parking there.”
Hughes said she chose the city's Badger Lands as a replacement option for a school site because the city currently has no development plans for the land after council voted last year to discontinue the solar farm project, and because more land could be designated for a school than is available with the rec-centre project.
As well, because of the Badger Land's proximity to the rec-centre land, Hughes said she thinks it would be possible to service the Badger Lands at the same time, so development of a new school would be shovel-ready if the province were to fund construction.
School board doesn't want to lose site
St. Albert Public Schools spokesperson Paula Power said although a new high school in the northwest doesn't make sense for the division, given the proximity of Bellerose Composite High School, the division needs a new K-9 school in the area. Therefore, it doesn't want to lose an already identified school site.
“We don't want to lose any potential school sites as they are extremely difficult to obtain,” Power said. “We know we will need a K-9 school in the west so that would be an appropriate site for such a school, it's just not appropriate for our high school needs.”
“Our steady growth continues and we are once again running out of room in our schools, especially new areas of the city.”
Power said the division would like to see a new high school in the northeast area of the city, particularly in the Erin Ridge neighbourhood.
“We need a high school site in the northeast — anything on the west side is too close to Bellerose and would not serve the city and its families well,” she said. “It would be similar to the city building two fire halls close together instead of spreading them throughout the city.”
Hughes said if her motion passes and a school site is identified on the Badger Lands, local school divisions will be able to determine what type of school would best fit the site.
“If you look at what we have (planned for the rec-centre), we did not allocate space for a playground ... because (for) anything other than (a high school) you'd have to have space for a playground,” Hughes said.
“Just the fact that (the rec-centre site plan) doesn't even have that versatility (to add a playground) indicates that we were trying to put a square peg in a round hole.”
The Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools division was unable to provide comment on Hughes' motion.
The earliest council will be able to debate both motions to amend the current rec-centre plan is Aug. 15.
