CEOPs and Land Use Re-Allocation

If you've been reading the blog today, you have seen a lot of information about the proposed land use reallocation of two areas in Deer Run and Deer Ridge.

I have been asked specifically about the possibility of the City using the area as 'affordable housing' and the possible impact of that development on CEOP's decision to close a school in our neighbourhood. The thinking is: do we need to close one of the three schools if there is going to be an influx of kids into our neighbourhoods in the near future? To get some information on this I called the CEOP's office to talk with Anne Trombley who is a planner with that department.

To paraphrase that conversation:

The CEOP proposal states that the two schools to remain open will have a 5 year speculated enrollment not exceeding 75-80% capacity of either school. If (that word again) the city re-allocates the above mentioned land for affordable housing, there would be approximately 6 acres of housing developed. It is outside of Anne's purview to know how many housing units that 6 acres could accommodate, but as an example:

A development with approximately 465 units would be anticipated to yield 1.7 people per unit. This translates into approximately 10-15 students per grade. In a K - 6 school, this translates into about 70-100 students.

Note that these two sites fall within the area that would be designated to Deer Run School according to the CEOP proposal. In that proposal, Deer Run School is projected to have 325-350 students over the next 5 years and has the capacity to accommodate 450 students.

An open house will be held at Wilma Hansen on Monday October 26th at 7:30pm. It is open to all parents from all the communities affected.