Ontario Construction News staff writer
The Ontario government is aiming to build new schools in as little as two years under new rules going into effect for school boards.
“Hundreds of thousands of people will be moving to Ontario in the coming years, and it simply cannot take a decade to build a school in this province any longer,” Education Minister Stephen Lecce said Monday at a press conference in Brampton.
Under new legislation, the government is also going to work with boards to help sell off unused properties, first considering them for affordable housing or long-term care.
With the commitment to build schools faster, comes a promise to spend $15 billion over the next 10 years to build new schools across the province.
“That’s $550 million every year to build new schools and to maintain existing schools,” Lecce said. “It simply cannot take a decade to build a standard school in this province.
“We’re unveiling a plan that will reduce the timelines by 50 per cent . . . saving taxpayer money, yes, but more importantly, getting access to quality schools at a quicker rate.”
Lecce says the average time it takes to build a school is between four and seven years, which is too long to meet the needs of Ontario’s quickly growing population.
He says the new strategy includes standardizing designs of new schools, to cut down on planning time, and reducing approval timelines. The last time the process was “meaningfully overhauled” was more than a decade ago.
Lecce says the province will prioritize projects that are “shovel ready,” and that have realistic costs and timelines.
Ontario has committed about $15 billion over 10 years for new school construction.
In addition to standardized designs for boards to choose from to streamline the planning process, Lecce said the provincial government will also “impose timelines and benchmarks on school boards to build these projects, according to their project agreements that we deliver and meet the timeline set out.”
Lecce has previously spoken about using prefabricated construction to save money and continues to encourage boards in the same regions to share space on the same sites, such as the Toronto public and Catholic boards operating Bishop Macdonell Catholic School, and Jean Lumb Public School in the Canoe Landing project in downtown Toronto, a site that also houses a community and child-care centre.
There are about 40 such shared-space projects across the province.