School District on different page than City when it comes to Wantage Road Work Camp

School District 52 is continuing to raise its concerns over a proposed work camp off of Wantage Road, which in the eyes of the School District Board will be a little too close to the city's Middle and Secondary schools.

As we outlined on the blog back in November, School District 52 offered up its initial thoughts regarding the project through a presentation from Treasurer Cam McIntyre, who provided a number of concerns about the proposed Wantage Road project at the Public Hearing that the City hosted on the topic on November 25th.

Area of proposed Wantage Road
work camp development

Possible design for Horizon North
Camp set up at Wantage Road site

Mr. McIntyre was one of a number of participants in that Public Hearing process on the night, the vast majority of those that participated provided a range of concerns when it came to the City's plan for the Wantage Road site.

On behalf of the School District, Mr. McIntyre outlined some items of note he had found regarding the impact of work camps on communities, making use of studies from Northern Health that highlighted a number of the concerns that the School District had with the planned location of the work camp.

You can review how that hearing moved forward from our item from November 27th here, of particular note Mr. McIntyre's presentation, highlighting the School District concerns can be found from the City's Video Archive of the hearing, they arrive at the one hour eleven minute mark.




However, when the time came to move forward on the rezoning issue, despite the strong opposition provided during the Public Hearing, Council voted unanimously in favour of rezoning the land, sending the process on to the developmental permit stage and the next stage for potential development.

The School District returned to the issue at their December 9th meeting, once again reinforcing the concerns that the School District has with a large scale work camp being located close to the city's schools, particularly its proximity to the Prince Rupert Middle School on Ninth Avenue West.

The Northern View provided this short overview of the School District discussions on the Wantage Road proposal.

School District Chair Tina Last continued to keep the topic on the radar of the community this week, with a Tuesday morning appearance on the CBC Daybreak North program.

Where she again highlighted the School District's concerns when it comes to the work camp proposal.

A portion of her interview is available from the DayBreak North website here.

At their December 9th session the School District voted to have staff members from SD52 request a meeting with the City to provide more background on their concerns on the proposed development.

For more background on the Wantage Road proposal see our items below.

Nov 27-- Council pushes ahead with Work Camp plans for Wantage Road, despite rough reception at Public Hearing
Nov 27-- Work Camp proponents may provide partial answer to City's ongoing Housing concerns
Nov 20-- Public Hearing on Wantage Road Zoning Proposal set for Monday evening
Nov 7-- Wantage Road area targeted by Council as a Major Project staging area

For more items from School District 52 see our archive page here.