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Wednesday, February 1, 2012

FOSS MEETS WITH SCHOOL BOARD ABOUT NEW SCHOOL IN THE LAKESHORE GROUNDS

This morning Terry Smith, FOSS's Acting Chair, Jem Cain, Ruth Grier and Brian Bailey from CCFEW met with the TCDSB Project Co-ordinator for the new Catholic School and the Architect who will design it.

The school will have three storeys and accommodate about 550 students on a rather small 2.19 acre site at the north west corner of Colonel Samuel Smith Park Drive and Lakeshore Blvd. West.  There will be a large setback from Lakeshore.  It should be completed late 2014 or early 2015.

Both FOSS and CCFEW emphasized the need for the design to be in harmony with the natural features of the park to maintain (and, hopefully, enhance) ecological integrity, particularly with regard to wildlife movement corridors, habitat protection and the opportunities a naturalized Sam Smith Park offers for environmental education.

Our concerns and asks were met with respect and interest. We look forward to seeing them implemented in the final design.

Here is a list of what was discussed.
 
·        Retain as many mature trees as possible
·        Plant more trees than ones removed for construction
·        Protection or replacement of part of heritage orchard
·        Development should facilitate the restoration of North Creek to maintain the wildlife corridor
·        Retain some of the thickets, additional planting of trees along North Creek as protected cover and habitat for wildlife
·        Promote environmental programming in the new school
·        Make parking’ footprint as small as possible (shared; underground; permeable surface options)
·        No fencing (except for around kindergarten playground)
·        Consider the least amount of glass on southern face of building to minimize bird collisions during migration
·        Community consultation with open meetings
 

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