‘We cannot delay any longer’: Board chair makes appeal to get final approval for new Catholic school in Alliston

The board of trustees for the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board is renewing pressure on the province to give the final approval needed to build a new catholic elementary school for Alliston.

Joe Zerdin, chair of the board of trustees, recently wrote a letter to Simcoe-Grey MPP Jim Wilson, appealing to him to “intervene” in and “expedite” the approval process.

The planned school, which would be built on Willoughby Way in the Treetops community, will accommodate 470 students and have a three-room child-care centre. The project stalled last year after the school board said it couldn’t be built within its original budget of $12 million.

Zerdin noted that the board received funding approval for the new school in March 2018 and it has since provided all the required submissions and answered all of the ministry’s questions.

The only thing that is needed to put the project out for tender is the Approval to Proceed from the Ministry of Education.

“Time is of the essence because our best opportunity to receive a favourable tender response (in terms of budget) is in the fall,” he wrote. “We cannot delay any longer.”

The board looked at potential ways of bringing down the project costs, like reducing the footprint of the building, HVAC changes and using less expensive building materials. It even looked at removing the air conditioning system, but this would have only reduced the budget by $125,000.

Even if all these changes were made, the project would have still been $1 million over budget.

Zerdin said the Alliston community “desperately needs construction to begin” and he noted the added pressures local schools face due to overcrowding and trying to meet all of the public health requirements for COVID-19.

“The simple fact is that this school should have been built years ago,” he wrote.

Simcoe.com asked the Ministry of Education to provide a status update on the approval process. “The ministry is committed to ensuring that each project meets the needs of the community and delivers good value for the Ontario taxpayers,” wrote ministry spokesperson Ingrid Anderson. “The ministry continues to review the board’s request.”