Is Scott Park the right choice for new school?
THE SPECTATOR’S VIEW
A new high school to meet current and future needs of downtown students. A joint-use facility that would provide modern recreational facilities in a neighbourhood badly in need of them. Green space and new facilities and services for underserved residents of the area, including seniors. A partnership between the City of Hamilton and the public school board.
What’s not to like about all this? So why is the idea getting a rough ride in many quarters?
In part, it’s about optics. The board sold the former Scott Park Secondary School — the proposed site of the new facility — to private interests back in 2003 for $650,000. To get it back, it will need to expropriate, and the current owner is throwing around numbers like $47 million as the appropriate asking price. Not surprisingly, many are upset that mountains of public money will be used to buy back a facility that was sold only a decade ago. But is that a fair criticism?
Not entirely. The school board closed Scott Park in 2001 in the face of plummeting enrolment at downtown high schools. The province was making noises about not funding new schools unless excess capacity in old schools was being dealt with. Closing the school was an appropriate decision at the time.
Critics also say the board shouldn’t have sold the asset, should have known it might be required a few years down the road. That criticism is unfounded. First, keeping Scott Park, even idle, was costing $100,000 annually. If the board hadn’t sold, it would have spent over a million dollars keeping a surplus property it hasn’t needed until now. Forecasting enrolment, except in general terms, is dicey at the best of times. To suggest that the board should have known in 2003 the site would be needed for a 1,250-student school today is a stretch, to say the least. Did the board sell for too little back then? Maybe. But the building needed and needs millions in upgrades, including for asbestos removal. That also explains why it hasn’t been redeveloped to date.
But is the Scott Park site the best option given potential expropriation costs? Is it the only site that would work? Just blocks away, King George and Parkview schools sit on property the board already owns. It says that site is too small, but is that the final word? How much public consultation has the board done on the Scott Park site specifically? Is more needed? (We suspect the answer to that one is yes.)
The school board is doing heavy lifting here. It is reinventing the system to adequately reflect current enrolment and financial realities. There’s no way to do that without making some people unhappy. But if we’re going to roast the board, let it be for good and fair reasons.
And let’s have a fuller public discussion on the Scott Park proposal and location.