HomeMy WebLinkAboutTDSB challenges ‘unfair’ development-charge regulation - Globe & Mail - 02/27/2018 - Globe & Mail - 02/27/20182/28/2018 TDSB challenges `unfair' development -charge regulation - The Globe and Mail
TDSB challenges `unfair' development -charge
regulation
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The Toronto District School Board is challenging a provincial regulation that
prevents it from collecting millions of dollars in development charges to hiiv land
for new schools where the student population is growing. ' ` �"J, T C F' A l
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2/28/2018 TDSB challenges `unfair' development -charge regulation - The Globe and Mail
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declared "constitutionally inoperative."
The regulation dictates that boards with excess school space are not eligible to
collect Educational Development Charges (EDCs), the money that developers pay
into the school system when they build new sites. The Toronto Catholic District
School Board, meanwhile, can collect these levies because, according to the
Education Ministry, it has no excess school space.
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Many of the province's school boards have been struggling for years with declining
enrolment, and 45 out of 72 of them are operating partly empty schools. Yet, within
several of those boards, there have been pockets of growth driven by residential
development, and education officials say they can't collect badly needed dollars
from developers to help build new schools. Boards are left to rely on the province to
approve capital projects.
The TDSB said in its filing that the board is obligated under the Education Act to
provide "adequate accommodation" to all students who have a right to attend its
schools. "But the TDSB is not able to adequately plan for and address the
accommodation pressures occasioned by that growth," it stated.
"The law says one thing and the regulation, in our opinion, contradicts the law. We
don't think that's appropriate," TDSB chair Robin Pilkey said in an interview on
Tuesday.
A spokesman for Education Minister Indira Naidoo-Harris did not directly address
the TDSB's judicial -review application and said in an e-mail statement that the
government has made investments to school infrastructure. Richa" --lice
school boards, including the TDSB, can submit business cases to tl �' �� � 1J, C A
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2/28/2018 TDSB challenges `unfair' development -charge regulation - The Globe and Mail
The Ontario government has been critical of the TDSB's reluctance to close schools
operating below capacity or to sell off unused green space.
The TDSB has more than 34,000 surplus spaces at the elementary level, and more
than 21,000 at the secondary level.
But the board said that existing surplus school capacity is often not in growth areas.
The worry is that children will have to be bused to school outside their
neighbourhoods.
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Ms. Pilkey said the TDSB has been looking at other ways to address growth,
including school boundary changes. She said that being able to access EDCs would
be helpful.
"The reality is that where we have space is not where the growth is. The fact that we
have capacity in Scarborough doesn't help us at Eglinton and Yonge," she said.
Eglinton Junior Public School, located at Eglinton Avenue East and Mount Pleasant
Road, has 574 children even though its capacity is 507. By 2022, its student
population is projected to climb to 696.
Shelley Laskin, the area's school trustee, said smaller resource rooms are being used
as classrooms to accommodate students. There is no space to add portables or for an
addition, she said. Ms. Laskin said if the board was allowed to collect EDCs, it would
have purchased a strip mall just south of the school last year and expanded the
building.
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2/28/2018 TDSB challenges `unfair' development -charge regulation - The Globe and Mail
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"We need the province to partner with us to plan for that. We know the planning
numbers; we have to prepare for that."
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