The North Vancouver School District is one step closer to approval of its $49-million replacement of Argyle secondary.
But the long-awaited project still has some crucial hurdles to leap before it gets on to the drawing board.
School trustees were recently relieved to get word that the North Vancouver school district won’t be asked to cough up millions more dollars as a result of a provincial policy change.
Administrators and trustees had been concerned after the province announced in the spring that all school districts running a surplus would have to contribute up to half of the cost of new capital projects.
In May, the school board wrote to the minister of finance, voicing serious concerns about the new policy.
In September, the school district finally got word that any seismic capital project already approved would not be subject to the extra-cash policy.
That’s one big worry off the table, said Franci Stratton, chair of the North Vancouver board of education.
But the local school district is still waiting for the province to give final approval to the project.
Part of that hinges on the ministry of education being satisfied the school district has a plan to fund the difference between a $40-million seismic upgrade and the $48.9-million cost of a complete rebuild.
“I’m hoping we’re getting close to showing the ministry we can support a replacement school,” said Stratton.
The school district is counting on cash from several land sales of former school properties in North Vancouver to provide about $9 million needed for the project to go ahead.
This summer, the shuttered Keith Lynn alternative school site became the latest land sale after the school district sold the property to the District of North Vancouver for $5 million.
Final sales agreements for other multimillion-dollar properties — including deals for the $6.38-million former Monteray school site, $5.1-million Ridgeway Annex site and a $2.4-million portion of property at Braemar elementary — are contingent on developers winning approval of their projects from local municipal councils.
The school district must also finish paying back an approximately $6-million debt that financed previous rebuild projects of Sutherland secondary in 2007 and Westview elementary in 2009.
Local trustees have written to the ministry of education and requested a meeting with senior officials to get the issue hammered out.
Work on design and detailed estimates can’t start until the province gives that agreement.
Realistically, however, with 18 to 24 months required to complete a design and a further two years for construction, a new school is at least four years away — after the province approves it.
Earlier this year, school trustee Barry Forward voiced frustration about delays in getting the project off the ground.
“Someone entering Grade 8 (this year) will never see a new school,” he said in July.
Forward added that since earthquake risk is one of the compelling reasons for the new school, every delay means “another year we’re putting (students) in a substandard facility.”
“Any capital project . . . does take a long period of time,” Stratton acknowledged. “We’re working really hard to get that project agreement.”
