A perfect project

“It’s going to make a profound difference to the county for decades”

Gordonstoun, an international not- for- profit boarding school that’s coming to Annapolis County, is thanks to a lot of people, but in the end, council took the initiative in an outsidethe-box sort of way.

There will be 600 students annually from around the world and it compliments the county’s work with cities in China bringing students to the area.

Warden Timothy Habinski has been working on both those fronts as the face of council in both China and Scotland.

“I’m elated. All the way along our philosophy as a council, certainly my own philosophy, is that you cannot wait for good things to be brought to you,” said Habinski in an interview. “You need to go out into the world, try to develop relationships, find best practices, find good ideas and bring them back.”

Working with businessman David Wang, the county has brought numerous students to local schools, and most recently a delegation of Chinese businesspeople visited the area with an interest in such products as fish and cider.

“Municipalities need to actively be seeking the good things their communities need in order to thrive and prosper. This is one of the things where we did that,” he said in reference to Gordonstoun Nova Scotia, the $62-million project of New Brunswick developer Edward Farren. “I think what we found is a remarkably good fit for Annapolis County. I think it’s going to make a profound difference to the county for decades.”

Economic Driver Habinski has full confidence in Gordonstoun Nova Scotia as an economic driver.

“It’s just about as good as you could find in a project of this scale,” he said. “Municipalities of course are always looking for something and the sorts of things they often wind up with are things like call centres which are often there on a very temporary basis, they provide low-paying jobs, and they disappear, and they leave a hole and they were often provided with infrastructure at the outset.”

He said schools like Gordonstoun, which has been in existence in northern Scotland for 84 years, have strong business cases.

“They tend to measure their life expectancy in decades and centuries rather than in individual years,” he said. “They’re goodpaying jobs with a business that’s stable, that is going to have an extremely light footprint on the environment, that plans to be active within the community and integrated into the community.”

The warden said for all those reasons it’s an ideal project.

“It will be bringing in directly nearly 100 jobs, and then indirectly the multiplier is very significant for the local businesses that will grow or be created in order to meet some of the needs of Gordonstoun,” he said. “And they are absolutely committed to local shopping right across the board. So I think we’re going to see an impact on our local farmers. We’re going to see an impact on our local developers because there’s going to be a real need for building housing as well adjacent to it and ancillary to the facility.”

Housing

“What we have been told, while we were in Scotland, was that quite a number of the parents of students, particularly students from the Middle East and from Asia, liked to get a residence close to the school for the duration of their child’s attendance,” Habinski said. “They said that’s a very common thing, so we anticipate it will be good for housing in the area.”

The warden said for a town the size of Bridgetown, such a school in the area would have a major impact.

“It has a population of just under 1,000 people and probably a workforce of somewhere right around 375,” he said. “I think it’s not unreasonable to anticipate that Gordonstoun will directly and indirectly create about 225 very good jobs right in the region. Just think what kind of an impact that would have on the economy the size of Bridgetown.”

As for the social economy, Habinski sees only positive things.

“One of the things that I anticipate seeing here - because I certainly saw it in Elgin near the original Gordonstoun Scotland - because the students of Gordonstoun are so active in volunteerism, the students at the local public schools have elevated their own volunteerism. It tends to cause a resurgence of that. To me that’s social capital.”