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North Vancouver neighbours weigh in on Lucas site

Residents point to high-density housing as worst-case option
lucas centre
Margot Long of PWL Landscape Architecture and Peter Joyce of Bunt & Associates Engineering talk with Monica Fraser at the public open house on the Lucas Centre site Feb. 19.

There was no shortage of ideas Wednesday night at the latest public meeting on the future of the school district's Lucas Centre site in North Vancouver.

Between 30 and 40 residents, consultants and North Vancouver school board members were in attendance to exchange ideas and share concerns about what might inhabit the site in the future. Dialog Design, the firm working with the school board to collect public input, conducted its first public meeting last month and will hold another one in either March or April.

John Lewis, superintendent of schools, said one goal of the meeting was to reassure the community that there were no predetermined outcomes for the site.

Lewis said the school district and its consultants are very open to hearing what the public would like to see for the future for the Lucas site.

Lewis confirmed the school board has received inquiries from different groups, including real estate companies.

"We said this is a process, we invite them to participate in this process providing input, that's the stage that we're at and encourage them to attend," he said.

The public meeting invited residents, including those of the surrounding Hamilton Heights area, to post their comments on information boards in the Lucas Centre gymnasium, and fill out forms voicing their concerns and any suggestions they may have for the development of the site. The school board is accepting comment forms until the end of February.

The Lucas Centre, previously Hamilton junior secondary, closed as an enrolling public school in 1982 and has since been used to support educational programs.

Pamela Pike, spokeswoman for the Hamilton Heights Neighbourhood Association, said densification of the site is a major concern for the surrounding homeowners.

"(The) worst case for us (is) high density housing. I mean that's just atrocious," said Pike.

"We have one of the old time neighbourhoods, I like to call it. Kids can still play on the streets, they ride their bikes around, families don't have to be out with an eagle eye. .. so we're lucky in that respect and we'd like to maintain that sort of family-friendly neighbourhood."

Pike said ideas from residents for what should happen on the site have ranged from a seniors care facility to park facilities and even an urban farm.

"The ideas are pretty wide ranging," she said. "It's a very desirable piece of land. I hope that our neighbours and our area residents who we feel are the primary stakeholders of the area can come out and express their opinion and maybe provide some great ideas. .. and be heard. Because there's nothing worse than feeling like you're not heard."

Hamilton Heights resident Heather Priest said there is fear the area will become "a total traffic gridlock" if high-density housing is built there.

"It would change the area totally," said Priest.

Priest said she would like to see the playing fields retained and have a seniors housing facility where the current Lucas Centre building stands.

"I think that would be a great balance of age groups for the location. It's not exclusively one or the other," she said. "And I think that would actually produce the least amount of traffic."

Christie Sacre, school board trustee, said she's

open to ideas regarding the site.

"I'd like to see something really cool happen here," said Sacre of the Lucas site.

"We need to fund it and that's where we have to get creative. The North Shore is running out of land and this is one of the last large pieces of land left and to make it into something that we already have a lot of doesn't make sense to me."

Consultants will be conducting a survey in May, with the middle of June set as a tentative deadline.

Lewis said the board has set out its guiding principles for what it wants to achieve through its overall land management strategy.

"The board of education's been really clear about maintaining an open mind to any future potential possibilities for the site," said Lewis.

"Our bottom line is that we provide educational services to students, so our mandate is to look at how we can use our properties and our surplus sites to benefit the educational programs for our students today and for tomorrow."