Hamilton school board rejects minister’s ‘land hoarding’ remarks
New powers could force sale of SJAM site, Lecce suggests
Hamilton’s public school board says it’s not “hoarding” land — as Ontario’s education minister suggests — and still hopes to see students once again on a piece of downtown real estate where its building has sat vacant for five years.
“To frame it that we’re just holding land because we don’t want to share is absolutely not the full picture,” board chair Maria Felix Miller told The Spectator.
The board closed Sir John A. Macdonald Secondary School (SJAM) in 2019 and has tried four times to secure provincial funding for a new elementary school with child-care spaces on the parcel.
“We’re always hopeful that our original goals for the site will be possible,” Miller said of the eightacre property nestled between York Boulevard, Cannon, Bay and Hess streets.
Last week, Stephen Lecce said the Tory government would consider using new legislative powers to force the sale of long-vacant school properties for priorities like affordable housing and nursing homes if they’re not needed for educational purposes.
“If school boards are not going to end the territorialism and the land hoarding, frankly, the government now has powers to act,” he said when reporters asked about the SJAM site during a visit to Mohawk College.
He doesn’t want to use that “blunt instrument” to force sales under the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, but “we’re prepared to use it if we need to,” said Lecce, also referring to other unused school properties in Ontario.
Under the new rules, parcels are initially to be offered to other school boards for first right of refusal, and then to Infrastructure Ontario for potential long-term-care or affordable-housing projects, Lecce noted. After that, they go to the open market for any entity, including municipalities, to make offers, he said.
The board closed SJAM, along with Delta in the east end, following an accommodation review that led to the construction of Bernie Custis Secondary School across from Tim Hortons Field. The new elementary school at SJAM would be for Hess and Strathcona students.
The area has a growing elementary school population and board officials have been “very conscious that we don’t want to dispose of land too quickly,“Miller said.
That has led to issues in the past, noted the new chair, offering the board’s Scott Park experience several
years ago as a cautionary tale.
In 2004, the board sold the former school land, a parking lot and recreation centre for $650,000, but then paid to expropriate the property about a decade later. This is where Bernie Custis now stands.
Miller said local education officials understand the gravity of Hamilton’s affordable-housing crunch.
“But to sort of pin it on us, that we’re not wanting to share, or we’re not wanting to move through the process appropriately, is absolutely not the case.”
Asked about Lecce’s comments, Mayor Andrea Horwath said addressing the housing crisis should be a priority.
“First and foremost, I think it’s important that everybody works together to realize the needs that the city has when it comes to affordable housing.”
But it’s also wise to take heed of education needs as more people flock to the downtown area, Horwath said.
“I would just want to see partnership there,” she added, “as opposed to the kind of forcing somebody’s hand to make a decision that might not be the right one.”
In that vein, Miller said the board and city have worked collaboratively, citing a new elementary school and community centre in Greensville as an example.
Trustees would also be open to housing, where appropriate, noting a “holistic approach” that blends various uses at single locations can foster strong communities.
“And I would be hopeful that the minister would be open to that approach,” Miller said, ”instead of bullying school boards to make choices that maybe don’t actually make sense for the long-term well-being of our local neighbourhoods.”