Kensington Outline Plan Development Concept. Photo/ City of Grande Prairie

By Courtney Almeida

New School Site

New school site approved for the developing Kensington area

May 22, 2019 | 5:07 PM

City Council approved a request from the school districts to designate a new school site in the future Kensington area at a Council meeting Tuesday evening.

“Its great that we were able to accomplish that because there was already a large Municipal Reserve space in the centre of the neighbourhood that was intended to be a community park. Obviously, school playgrounds function very much like community parks anyhow and so it was an easy change to make,” says Mayor Bill Given.

Although the site will not be used as a community park, a large amount of open space will still be available for both school and public recreational usage.

Which school district the new spot will belong to is still up in the air.

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Both the Catholic and Public-school districts are competing for the school site

The current Kensington Area Structure Plan outlines the 4.6 hectares of land as sufficient for a K-8 school; including a bus-loop, staff/visitor parking and playground and sports fields.

A trail network linking all parks in the neighbourhood will also allow for a path to be used by students to walk to school.

The Mayor explains that the Catholic school district put in a request for two school sites.

“City Council reviewed the issue with management and based on our school site planning policy, identified that we would have only one school site in the neighbourhood at this stage.”

The Mayor notes that a final decision will likely be made based on enrollment increases and the decision is really in the hands of the province.

“Ultimately, no schools get built until the province is ready to put forward the funds to construct them and in a community like Grande Prairie, that’s an ongoing issue that we always need more schools then we have.”

The school site is still in the early stages of discussion and it isn’t likely that anything will be finalized for a number of years.

The Kensington area itself is a developing neighbourhood, located on the west side of Grande Prairie.

It is west of 116 Street in the southwest corner of the City and bounded on the north and west by the CN tracks and to the south by 76 Avenue.