One key piece of the Burke Mountain puzzle - planning construction of schools - fell into place this week with a land deal that gives School District 43 six acres for an elementary school in the Partington Creek neighbourhood.
On Tuesday, the board of education approved a bylaw that approves a six-acre site for the new school.
And while construction is still a long way off, the deal is good news for SD43, according to Ivano Cecchini.
The district's head of facilities and planning services has been working for some months on several projects, including a land deal for Smiling Creek elementary, which will be built first and whose plans still need some tweaks.
But in an interview with The Tri-City News, Cecchini said land acquisition for Partington Creek was able to move forward because the province agreed to a sponsored grant for the entire six acres. Originally, 4.7 acres was proposed but later deemed inadequate as SD43 is now building bigger schools.
"In the end, the province stepped forward and funded the extra land," Cecchini said.
Wesbild spokesperson Jen Derbyshire said the school is going in an area where 137 single family homes will eventually be built, once zoning is approved, and securing the site is a great relief.
"We actually agreed to sell the land if you will at the market value - at what it was when we bought in in the 2000s - because we were eager to get the school confirmed," she said, noting that the developer will also provide the servicing at cost, including servicing for the additional 1.3 acres that was added.
The district can now proceed with an application for the sponsored Crown grant for the entire property, Cecchini said.
For Derbyshire, getting Smiling Creek underway on Burke is even more important, because it's slated to be built first and parents in the area are eagerly awaiting it. "They [parents] are happy to get this news, but the news they really want is when Smiling Creek will start construction."
Meanwhile Cecchini confirmed that the deal for Smiling Creek elementary, which has a planned 2017 opening date, is still in the works and should be finalized this spring.
The school district is hoping to have a public meeting in May to lay out its plans for all Burke Mountain schools.
Meanwhile, enrolment at Leigh and Irvine elementary schools closest to new Burke Mountain neighbourhoods continues to grow. According to SD43 stats, Leigh has grown from 285 students in 2010 to 434 in 2014, with the largest jump in enrolment from 2013 to 2014 when 63 new students were added. Irvine, meanwhile, has seen enrolment grow from 347 in 2010 to 445 in 2014, an increase of 98 students.
According to Cecchini, the school district is now building larger elementary schools to accommodate 400 to 450 students, instead of 200 to 250, for programming and financial reasons.
