New Westminster city council is allowing a revised proposal for Urban Academy to move forward but the approval is far from being a done deal.
Urban Academy has presented the city with a revised proposal for 101 Third Ave. and 228 Manitoba St. that would see a new school building built to accommodate 350 students, with three storeys above grade and one storey below grade, most at the Manitoba Street site.
Council voted 6-1 against the school’s initial application after a five-hour public hearing in May that pitted many Queen’s Park residents against the school and its supporters.
It appears the newest proposal is already dividing council, as council members engaged in an emotional 40-minute discussion about the project at its Nov. 2 meeting.
Coun. Patrick Johnstone said Urban Academy deserves to know whether there is an appetite on council to consider any expansion beyond the school’s current footprint on Third Avenue. While he’s not saying he supports the plan as proposed, Johnstone said he can see himself supporting a plan that includes a new building on the Manitoba Street site.
Councillors Bill Harper, Jaimie McEvoy and Chuck Puchmayr argued the new proposal doesn’t come close to satisfying the neighbourhood.
“We have been through this already. We just need to bring something that is close to being agreeable,” Harper said. “If it’s not, I can’t support it.”
McEvoy said he’s not a fan of a process where people go through a lot of time and effort developing a proposal, with high hopes of success, only to have it defeated at public hearing.
“So let’s be honest – there may be a chance that this revised proposal coming forward could pass council, but certainly far from any kind of guarantee,” he said. “I would say if we really looked at the kind of issues that we all articulated at the public hearing, I don’t see a significant change.”
Mayor Jonathan Cote, along with councillors Johnstone, Mary Trentadue and Lorrie Williams supported a motion to allow the proposal to move forward, but to have staff work with the applicant on alternate locations and on refinements to the proposal before it comes back to council for first reading of the rezoning bylaw.
Cote said he had a number of concerns about the initial proposal but believes Urban Academy has put significant effort into revising its application.
“Are the revisions solving all those problems? No. But I don’t think that’s always necessarily possible,” he said. “Today isn’t about saying yes or no to this application. To me it’s about giving guidance about how to move forward.”
Puchmayr said there are times when council needs to “stand up and take some leadership” on controversial issues, even though it can be painful.
“I am very concerned about the process here tonight. I think we are going to need to address this. If this is a process that’s going to happen every time a development fails, and it’s merely going to be a ricochet to get that development back into the public realm, I don’t think that is fair to our residents,” Puchmayr said. “I think that exposes our residents to an inherent unfairness where they have to come out and fight this battle over and over again. I don’t want to see this.”
Cote said the “difficult discussion” at the meeting will send a clear signal to Urban Academy that the new proposal doesn’t have consensus in the community or at the council table, so there’s some “risk” with a future application and it may not have a positive outcome.
