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Planned relocation of Toronto students at Bloor Collegiate delayed

NEWS NOV 12, 2019

The planned relocation of students from Bloor Collegiate Institute and Alpha II Alternative School, to accommodate a massive development project at the Bloor-Dufferin intersection, won’t take place until the end of the 2020-21 school year, the Toronto District School Board has announced.

In a letter sent at the beginning of the month, Ward 9 school trustee Stephanie Donaldson said the relocation for the students and staff from Bloor Collegiate Institute to Central Technical School, which had been planned for during the 2020-21 school year, had been extended after an agreement was reached with developer Capital Developments which is taking over the site.

“The developer has exercised its right to extend the closing date of the property until Dec. 2021 and supports the option for the TDSB to remain in the building until the end of the 2020-21 school year,” Donaldson says in the letter addressed to students, parents and staff.

www.toronto.com

Planned relocation of Toronto students at Bloor Collegiate delayed

The relocation of students from Bloor Collegiate Institute and Alpha II Alternative School, to accommodate a development project at the Bloor-Dufferin intersection, won’t take place until the end of...
www.toronto.com www.toronto.com
 
toronto.ctvnews.ca

Organizers of community garden in Toronto west-end hope to postpone its destruction until after harvest

The organizer of a community garden in the city's west-end hopes the Toronto District School Board will postpone the destruction of their garden for another few months so they can harvest the vegetables.
toronto.ctvnews.ca

“(Toronto District School Board) TDSB staff approached me and kind of talked about (how) they were told to dig up the garden. And they're planning on putting a big—putting an even bigger kind of wooden fence, because right now it's just kind of like a see through fence—around the entire site. They were told to dig up the garden, but that they didn't feel very good about that.”

“Then they told me that construction could possibly begin in August, but not specifically when in August. So that was news to me.”

The staff didn’t tear up the garden on Thursday, choosing instead to discuss the situation with their superiors—something the garden organizer said she appreciates.

Lebel-Pantazopoulos added that she knew the garden could not be sustained in that area—but hopes that a compromise can be reached so that residents can still harvest what they grew. She is hoping that even if the TDSB can’t change the location of their fence to ensure the garden is protected, that maybe they can wait until the fall so that the plants can be removed from the area safely.

“They all worked so hard and to not get to even taste—you know, the literal fruits of their labour—I think would just be really disappointing.”

“If there is, you know, 30 more days, 60 more days, it would make a huge difference to us if we got to stay for that time, have access to the garden for that time. That means all the vegetables in there that are not ripe now, could ripen. We can harvest all those green tomatoes and you know, we can have time to even maybe relocate the plants and donate them to other gardens or the community.”

Lebel-Pantazopoulos said they intend to donate any excess food to the nearby community fridge.

CTV News Toronto has reached out to the TDSB for comment but has yet to receive a reply.

The office of the area’s councillor told CTV News Toronto they could not comment on the issue as the land is not owned by the city.

“We have heard about this but as this is TDSB land and a TDSB project we do not have a construction schedule or information with respect to the TDSB’s timelines and any consideration they may have with respect to the Community Garden on their land,” Ward 9 Counc. Ana Bailão’s Chief of Staff Michael Giles said in an email.

Lebel-Pantazopoulos said that she did reach out to the city and to the TDSB when she considered applying for a grant to help support the project, but heard little in return.
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I searched the forum; and this thread and didn't see much on replacement High School. Rather than giving it its own thread, I will stick the info I have found here: (if this is duplicative the mods can move/delete)

1) What caught my attention was that the construction tenders for the replacement school are in........and about 8.9M over the approved funding envelope. TDSB is set to award the tender regardless and is waiting to find out if the MOE will fund the difference, or if they will have to take it from the proceeds of this development.

The TDSB Report is here: https://pub-tdsb.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=9078

From said report:

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*****

Now the above led to me to wonder whether I had seen the drawings of the new school................I kind of thought they had been posted.........but I don't see them.

So, I went looking............and after a bit more digging that unusual.........I found them on the TDSB website.

The link is: https://schoolweb.tdsb.on.ca/Portals/bloorci/docs/1712-Bloor Alpha-NSRT Mtg No_1-2018 01 09-FINAL.pdf

From the above presentation:

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On the design: For a new build, and a fairly modest budget.........not bad...

The singular overt thing I don't like is the flooring choice. It just looks cheap, and overly durable.

Though I also think the second-floor hall lighting lacks appeal. For no additional funds, I think a better design choice could be arrived at.

*EDIT* to add, @AlexBozikovic has posted below, indicating the photos above, taken from the TDSB public presentation for the new school, do NOT in fact represent the as-approved design.
I find it beyond irksome
 
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On a related note, I see that Bloor CI and Alpha Academy which shared its building are both moving in with Central Tech for the duration of the construction.
What stood out at me in reading up on that, is that both of the above schools will apparently fit entirely within the 3rd floor of Central Tech with minimal crowding issues.

****

Central Tech (principal building) is very attractive for the most part, and should absolutely be retained.........but if they can spare an entire floor of that massive complex, it likely indicates a need to
reconsider how that site is organized.
 
ProjectEnd said:
Unbelievably bad. Truly embarrassing that in ~50 years, we've gone from Peter Pennington and Lord Lansdowne to these cheap, anonymous, garden sheds. A City that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
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That's what happens with a province legislatively denies a school board their primary form of capital funding for decades, the school board gets so focused on stretching their extremely limited dollars that they can't think on a bigger picture. Every design decision by the TDSB seems oriented at minimizing ongoing capital maintenance costs, and honestly, it makes sense given how tight their maintenance budget is. Toronto's schools are generally falling apart while 905 school boards enjoy massive, modern facilities simply because they are allowed to collect development charges and Toronto isn't.
 
innsertnamehere said:
That's what happens with a province legislatively denies a school board their primary form of capital funding for decades, the school board gets so focused on stretching their extremely limited dollars that they can't think on a bigger picture. Every design decision by the TDSB seems oriented at minimizing ongoing capital maintenance costs, and honestly, it makes sense given how tight their maintenance budget is..
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TDSB choose their own architects.

On this particular school, they also chose to spend millions of dollars providing a staff parking garage, which isn’t mandated and probably won’t get used very much.

Those decisions belong entirely to them.

On the bigger picture: this organization runs a real estate portfolio worth at least $10 billion. The fact that they can’t figure out any creative or productive ways to get value out of it is a problem. Not everything is the province’s fault.
 
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