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Sale of former Blanshard Elementary School building opposed

Selling the former Blanshard Elementary School building at a time when district enrolment is rising would be short-sighted, says the president of the Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association.
Blanshard-school-aerial.jpg
Aerial view of former Blanshard Elementary School site in Victoria, south of Hillside Avenue and east of Blanshard Street.

Selling the former Blanshard Elementary School building at a time when district enrolment is rising would be short-sighted, says the president of the Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association.

District enrolment rose by about 400 students in September 2015.

“These are lands that we can’t get back,” Benula Larsen said. “With enrolment going up, this is the time to talk about it and what it is that we need to do.”

Blanshard Elementary was closed in 2003 as enrolment fell, and has since been used by private educational institutions under terms of a 99-year lease established by the district in 2004.

An agreement reached in November, which still needs Ministry of Education approval, would see the Capital Regional Hospital District purchase the portion of the grounds containing the school.

The hospital district reached an agreement in 2013 for the bulk of the property, the 1.4-hectare field portion bordering Hillside Avenue.

Most of the cost to the hospital district is for purchase of the balance of the lease, held by private interests — $6 million for the field area and $5.3 million for the building area.

In addition, the school district received $500,000 from the 2013 deal and stands to get $500,000 on the pending deal, on top of the money already generated through leasing.

Leasing of the site has netted the school district $2.4 million since the first private institution, University Canada West, moved into the school.

The plan for the field area is to build a 320-unit seniors residential-care facility, called the Summit at Quadra Village, to replace the aging Oak Bay Lodge and Mount Tolmie Hospital. No long-term plan has been announced for the school and the land around it, although it will be used during construction of the facility for parking and storing materials.

Should the current deal go through, the hospital district will allow the school’s current tenant, Vancouver Career College (Burnaby) Inc., to stay for five more years.

Larsen noted that rentals are working well at other closed schools.

“It’s great because they’re not selling them,” she said. “This is a time we need to hold off with Blanshard and we need to have the conversation with [district] facilities, with B.C. Housing, as well. This has to become a priority.”

However, school district superintendent Piet Langstraat said Blanshard Elementary is not needed by the district, and the board decided the site should go back into the “public trust.”

“We took a look at space available in the neighbouring schools and projections into the future,” he said.

“Basically what that showed was there was capacity in the schools in that area for many years to come.”

jwbell@timescolonist.com