The Westdale field saga continues
Construction to install turf begins months after desired starting date and leaves field dug up just as students return to school
It was early last September, not long after the natural grass on Westdale Secondary School’s field had died, that the public school board announced it would be replacing the greenery — former greenery — with artificial turf. Work was hopefully to begin in the spring or summer.
That didn’t happen.
Instead, just as students were returning to school where they presumably might be interested in using the field, heavy excavation equipment moved in to begin the project, leaving the chewed-up acreage now looking more
like a dirt-bike track than a sports field.
It’s just the latest chapter in an ongoing, head-scratching story.
Four years ago when plans were being made to rebuild the field, many in the community asked that artificial turf be installed so it would last longer, could be used more often and year round, would cost less to maintain and would generate revenue from rentals. The Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board instead saw the cost was $2 million for turf compared to $1.25 million for the real stuff, rejected those pleas and put in grass.
But, then in 2019, the board changed its mind. Turf would be better it decided. As a result, artificial surfaces would be installed at most of its schools. Though not Westdale’s since its grass was still new.
“It’s OK to learn,” then-board chair Alex Johnstone said when that decision was made. “And as we roll out strategies, especially with facilities, there will be changes, there will be feedback, and it’s not to state that we were wrong before, it’s that we were being diligent before.”
When Westdale’s grass promptly died, “wrong” suddenly sounded like it might be exactly the right word. But since the field was now toast, it was suddenly included in the new plan and a letter was sent to the school community last Sept. 2 announcing that work to bring in turf would hopefully begin in the spring or summer. Regulatory approvals permitting.
Engineering drawings were completed in January and submitted to the city before the end of that month. However, the city didn’t give final site plan approval until the last day of
June. Which meant the board couldn’t call for bids until the middle of July. As a result, the contract wasn’t awarded until the beginning of August.
Why would it take five months to get a site plan approval to allow the area to be changed from a sports field to, well, another sports field?
“There were a number of conditions to be cleared by the applicant and more than one submission needs to be received by the city for review and clearance,” city staff wrote in an emailed response to The Spectator.
“How quickly the process advances rests with the applicant, and when they submit the information to the city.”
Whatever the reason for the months-long wait, if the approval process from the city was pushing things into the fall, would it not have been wise to wait to get started on the work until next spring while school is out? Especially in a COVID-19 year when spending as much time spread out is being encouraged and space outside might be extra valuable.
That way the field could be used this year (even if it wasn’t in great shape and even if it was only for phys-ed classes or recreational space) and then have the new one all done and ready to go when students return?
“The field construction was not delayed as there are pressures to have the field completed as soon as possible,” says school board manager of communications and community engagement, Shawn McKillop. “Also, we understood that the field was not being used due the fact that it had suffered from disease.”
And so, things began getting torn up a couple weeks ago. The board says it will “likely” be completed in January and open in the spring.
The good news is, it’ll finally be done. In addition — though this hardly qualifies as something truly positive — the school has no football team this year so the field isn’t needed for that.
Though the coach says the decision to cancel the season was made after the contract to do the field was awarded, so the team would’ve been homeless had it played.
“They wouldn’t have known at that time,” Mike King says.
The bad news? Completing it will end up costing taxpayers more than a million bucks than if this had been done in the first place, hundreds of hours of potential community use have been lost and Westdale students will have lost part of another year of use on their field.