Council supports project to turn Marshall Park school into apartment unit

A rezoning request to renovate the old Marshall Park Public School into a 40 apartment unit was approved at the committee level and will now go to full council.

The project will now be placed under site plan control. The school closed in 2014 and has been vacant since then.

Councillor Mark King believes it was an obvious decision for council to approve the request, because it’s a win-win for the city. The city will benefit financially through this proposal, through building permit fees and taxes from the apartment building.

There was some concern about traffic volumes in the staff report, but there were no presentations from the public last night. King says traffic might even be less of a concern, because there won’t be such a rush of vehicles in the area at peak hours during the day.

King added that council could see more projects like these pop up in the next couple of years. With an ageing community that has seen a lot of younger people move to other cities, King says the potential for other schools to close down in the future is just something council will have to deal with.