A Surrey city councillor is calling for schools and daycare centres to be built into new towers as they are developed along the Surrey-91原创 SkyTrain route to help wean the city off its 鈥渁ddiction鈥� to portables.
Coun. Linda Annis says the city needs more schools, not portables, and while Surrey is expected to get 400 more portables this year that鈥檚 no long-term solution.
鈥淪urrey has become the school portable capital of the country, and that鈥檚 not the sort of distinction I want for our city or families,鈥� she said.
The councillor says the City of Surrey, school board and provincial government need to 鈥済et creative.鈥�
鈥淥ne of the solutions I want us to consider is building schools into the developments and towers already being planned for the SkyTrain route along Fraser Highway,鈥� Annis said. 鈥淚magine having a school and daycare in a cluster of condo towers where the walk to school is a short elevator ride.鈥�
Bree-Anna Berman, president of the Fleetwood Community Association, said incorporating daycares into apartment buildings has 鈥渁lready been done鈥� in her community.
鈥淏asically anything around the six storey and larger from our community association standpoint is required to put a daycare in, that鈥檚 one of our check boxes,鈥� Berman said. 鈥淲e have one currently being done and one in the works.鈥�
Schools, she added, is a 鈥渄ifferent conversation,鈥� being 鈥渕ore of a provincial thing.鈥�
But if you don鈥檛 have another solution, she said, 鈥測ou absolutely have to be looking into that as a solution. We鈥檝e been told Fleetwood requires about eight new schools with the new land-use plan and the density coming, so, I mean, you have to start somewhere and those are legitimate conversations. And if the schools aren鈥檛 being put on the land use plan that hey, this is the sites for a school, we need to come up with other solutions, and that seems to be kind-of the main one, is to put them in towers.鈥�
Annis notes that nearly 200,000 people are expected to reside along the corridor.
鈥淲hether it鈥檚 building schools into new residential towers and developments, public-private partnerships that get schools built faster, or building schools that are multi-storey so they require less land, but take advantage of local parks and recreation centres, we need to look at how we can be more creative to deliver more schools,鈥� Annis said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 nothing saying we can鈥檛 do something innovative and different along the SkyTrain route, particularly if it ensures we have the right number of schools so we can stop this addiction to portables.鈥�
Annis said Surrey consistently underestimates the number of new students flooding into this city every year.
鈥淔rankly, we鈥檙e playing catch up and we鈥檙e not doing a very good job at it.鈥�
鈥淲e know the SkyTrain route is coming, we know thousands of new families are going to live along the route, and we know we鈥檙e already short of schools,鈥� Annis added. 鈥淭he development of the new SkyTrain route is a terrific opportunity to think outside of the box and look at innovative school solutions that fit the sort of new developments we鈥檙e going to see along Fraser Highway that will be shaped by SkyTrain.鈥�
tom.zytaruk@surreynowleader.com
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