Ward 13 Dundas, Ont. councillor Arlene VanderBeek is pitching to have the site of Parkside Secondary School, which closed in June 2014, transformed into a new cemetery.
According to VanderBeek, the city has made a bid on the site, which is owned by the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board. The cost will be determined through negotiations.
Her reasoning is that the nearby Grove Cemetery, the only other Dundas cemetery, is reaching capacity, so more burial space is needed in the Hamilton municipality.
"The existing Grove Cemetery is a rather large city cemetery with 3,200 monuments (according to the city’s website) and it is anticipated that it will reach its capacity within approximately five years," says VanderBeek.
"The capacity of the proposed site would depend on the future plans which would be developed if and when the property is successfully acquired. City staff has been directed to present a bona fide offer and to pursue it for cemetery purposes."
Craig Murdoch, Hamilton’s director of environmental services, is on board with the idea, saying that Dundas is very space-limited and that the search for additional space has been ongoing for more than a year.
He adds Parkside is the "first viable property that has come to our attention," and that the city will keep looking if the bid isn’t successful. Currently, there are no other bids on the table.
Meanwhile, a group of about nine local residents put forward a proposal to renovate the building into affordable housing, but have agreed to take a step back while the city moves ahead with its bid on the site. They pitched affordable condo units with the vision of adding office space, community meeting space and a restaurant or cafe in Parkside’s former library.
The plan would keep the building standing and, according to group members, would keep the character of the residential neighbourhood.
In the group’s proposal, they envision as many as 30 condo units on as many as 10 small residential lots that sell for about $150,000.
VanderBeek says she isn’t against the idea, but says it’s riskier than the cemetery plan.
Although the two development proposals are quite different, the proponents share the same fear that it will fall into the hands of a private developer and the outcome would be less predictable.
The Parkside site, located near Dundas Driving Park, which has a splash pad and is popular with skateboarders, would be a convenient location for city workers to perform maintenance.
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