Abridged from today's T&T
City waits for next step (Regarding New Moncton High School)
Published Saturday December 17th, 2011
Moncton city manager says it will proceed with rezoning for school if it makes financial sense
By Aloma Jardine
Times & Transcript Staff
Moncton city manager Jacques Dubé says the rezoning process for the new Moncton High School isn't moving forward at the moment because a rezoning application has yet to be filed.
"We expect an application for the rezoning of the land," he says. "We expect that it will be submitted from the owner of the land for the school and a large residential area. The application hasn't been filed yet, but we have been working with the province and the developer."
The land in question is owned by Romspen Mortgage Investment Corporation, which also owns the Royal Oaks subdivision.
Romspen currently has approval to construct more than 800 more units at the site and the application that will cover the school rezoning is also expected to include a request for zoning for even more residential units.
Dubé says they are expecting to get the complete zoning application within the next 10 days.
Because the proposed development is not in an area of the city that is currently serviced by water, sewer or storm sewer lines, Dubé says the application must include a study to see what would be required to bring service to the area.
Dubé says the study must show the development's impact on storm sewers and street infrastructure, among other things, as well as a cost-benefit analysis - i.e. how much it will cost the city to extend the service versus how much it will make off the increased tax base the development will create.
Dubé says the city has a 30-year plan forecasting all capital expenditures and where they will be on debt repayment. When an unexpected project like this comes along, he says they need to figure out how to fit it in the city's long-term plan without impacting other major projects like a downtown events centre or new parks or trails.
The city is not particularly happy with the choice of location for the school in an unserviced area on the outskirts of the city.
The province's decision to build the new Northrop Frye School on an unserviced area on Ryan Road ended up costing the city $13.2 million.
It is entirely possible a cost-benefit analysis will show the costs of extending services to the area won't be outweighed by the financial benefits of the new development.
However, the province has repeatedly assured the city it is ready to step up to the plate to help with the costs.
"Normally a rezoning of this magnitude takes four to six months, but we've been able to lay out a schedule that will make it happen as quickly as humanly possible," Dubé says. "By the last week of March it could be signed, sealed and delivered. We have a project plan with this and we anticipate completing it by the end of March. April 2 would be the absolute outside," if the rezoning application is filed next week.
The process includes a public hearing, which would be held around March 19 if this timeline is followed, before council makes its final decision.
And city council does have the final say.
Dubé says if the province wants to issue a tender in the spring and get work started by early summer, then they are still on track to accommodate that, "as long as the financial and development considerations are in the interest of the community," he says.
personal note - this seems like a pretty sweet deal for Romspen Corp. In return for a promise to renovate and repurpose the old Moncton High School downtown, they have convinced the province to relocate the school out to Royal Oaks and thus automatically multiply the value of their development out there many times over. Romspen already has approval for 800 additional residential units on the site, and it sounds as if the rezoning request will include a provision for hundreds more building lots as well. Also, by siting the school out there, the lands will have to be serviced to municipal standards which will make the whole development even more attractive than it already was as a golf course community. The value of Royal Oaks therefore will have increased by tens of millions of dollars.
The cost? Well, for one thing, the city will have lost it's inner city high school which is a huge issue for a community trying to promote densification of the core. The downtown will become a place only for empty nesters, young people who have not yet started families, bachelors and spinsters! The implications of this cannot be overstated. Another thing is the cost to service the new high school. The article states that the cost to the city to service Northrup Frye School was $13.2M. The new Moncton High School will be even more geographically remote. How much do you want to bet that the cost to the city (and the province) for servicing this development will exceed $20-25M at least.
Ultimately, if Royal Oaks ends up with a couple of thousand residential units, and with the adjacent (large) Pine Tree development, we could eventually be looking at a brand new neighbourhood in the city with at least 10,000 residents. At some point, there will be a clamour for even more services to support this community. For the province, there may be the additional cost of a new K-8 school (or two) in the neighbourhood within the next 10 years or so. How about recreational centres, rinks etc. Surely Elmwood Drive will need to be four laned the whole way into the city. Commercial developments will follow requiring new signalized intersections etc. This all costs money.....
This is a pro-development forum, but not all development is necessarily good news. The city is growing and needs new places for people to live but building a non-contiguous residential community several km beyond the Trans Canada Highway is probably not the best way to go about it. There is lots of land to the south of the TCH, especially in the "Vision Lands" area that should be developed first. This would be cheaper and more environmentally friendly.
In the long run, it might actually have been cheaper for the province to do a wholesale preservation of Moncton High School in it's current location to keep it as a functioning educational institution and to maintain it's character! This whole exercise has very serious implications for the city and we are being rushed along by the province to approve all this without having a chance to seriously debate the issue! 
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