The chair of St. Albert’s public school board says the city could miss out on millions of dollars for new schools because it doesn’t have enough shovel-ready school sites.
St. Albert Public published an ad in the Feb. 6 issue of the Gazette calling on city council to commit to funding servicing for the northeast corner of St. Albert.
The ad says that the city has a shortage of shovel-ready sites for school construction, particularly in the Chérot neighbourhood and the city’s northeast.
In a phone and email interview, St. Albert Public board chair John Allen explained that the province had committed to building 90 schools in the next three years through its $8.6 billion School Construction Accelerator Program. St. Albert Public has two schools it hopes to build through this program, but can’t apply to it unless it has a serviced school site available. St. Albert has just one shovel-ready site big enough to host the board’s proposed schools.
“We need a high school site in the northeast to provide equitable access to education for families in the north end and to reduce traffic/congestion crossing St. Albert Trail,” he said.
Growth pressures
St. Albert Public representatives have repeatedly spoken to city council about growth pressures in recent months.
Allen said the public board was growing by about 300 students a year and would reach 10,000 students this September.
“That’s a new school building every three years from now until the end of time,” he said.
Right now, the city has just three shovel-ready school sites, Allen explained: one in Chérot, one in Riverside, and one in Oakmont. The Oakmont and Riverside sites were both too small for the board’s needs, and the Chérot one just got approved as shovel-ready by the city on Feb. 4 (which was after the board submitted its ad to the Gazette). Allen said the city’s sign-off on the Chérot site was great news, as that meant the public board could apply to build a big K-9 school there.
Allen urged city council to fund servicing for the just-approved Northeast St. Albert area structure plan to make one of the three school sites proposed for that region ready for construction of a high school. Edmonton and Calgary had dozens of shovel-ready sites poised to take the majority of the school accelerator program’s funds, and St. Albert could miss the boat if it doesn’t get more sites online soon.
“The province has started a race for new schools and the starting pistol has already sounded,” he said.
Not likely, says mayor
St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron said it was hard to justify spending tax dollars from all of St. Albert residents to service the northeast lands when only future northeast residents would benefit from that infrastructure. She had no idea when the northeast school site would be ready, so if St. Albert Public needed a site now, it should use the one that was available.
“We have a high-school site that’s ready to go today. It’s shovel-ready and ready to go. It’s in the Chérot neighbourhood.”
While St. Albert Public could put a high school on the Chérot site, Allen said it wouldn’t make sense to do so, given how close it was to Bellerose.
In an email, Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools superintendent Clint Moroziuk said his board had no issues with school site availability in St. Albert. They hoped to eventually build a K-9 school in Riverside and a high school in Chérot, and had shovel-ready sites for both.
