Schools may be needed in two residential developments proposed for waterfront areas in Port Moody and Coquitlam as School District 43 reviews its long-term classroom needs.
PoMo’s Flavelle Oceanfront Development wants to build 3,397 units in a mix of condos and townhouses in Port Moody, prompting SD43 to list a new elementary school for the area in its most recent new school land acquisition plan.
And Beedie Living’s plans to add 1,000 residential units to the 3,400 to 3,700 previously planned for Fraser Mills in Coquitlam has also prompted SD43 to take a second look at whether a school is needed there.
(A school for Fraser Mills was taken off the capital plan list in 2015 because the number of students projected to live in the development was considered too small to warrant a school, especially as the district was moving toward building larger schools.)
In both cases, the district will be trying to determine at how many children are expected to move into those buildings over time, and if the numbers are 450 kindergarten to Grade 5 students, a school could be required, said Ivano Cecchini, assistant secretary treasurer for facilities and planning. (For a middle school, 600 students are needed; for a high school, 1,000.)
But whether these schools are ever built is uncertain.
“We want to give the heads-up to the community and the developer [about] the potential of school sites,” Cecchini said, explaining the purpose of the school site acquisition plan.
Developers could change the housing mix so fewer families with school-aged children would move into an area, eliminating the need for a 2.5 hectare site for a school, or there could be changes in neighbouring schools that could affect school planning and prompt a new building or eliminate the need for one.
Coquitlam’s general manager of planning and development, Jim McIntyre, said community needs such as a school are part of a larger discussion about the Fraser Mills site that is still to come.
The need for new schools to meet growth in the Tri-Cities comes as as SD43 is calling for changes into how new schools are funded. Last month, SD43 board chair Kerri Palmer Isaak said it takes too long for the province to fund schools and a faster process is needed to make sure children in new developments have a place to go to school close to home.
