City council unanimously approved a revised concept plan on Monday night for phases five and six of the Westheath subdivision in South Hill. 

The original concept plan was adopted by city council in August of 2018. However, the city was approached by the Ministry of Education, the Prairie South School Division and the Holy Trinity Catholic School Division to build a joint-use school within the subdivision. 

In September of 2020, the city entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the ministry and the school divisions to outline the basic requirements for a joint-use school. 

A traffic impact assessment was done and found that the school could be built with a few traffic mitigation measures put in place. 

The Ministry of Education and the school divisions used the same consultant who did the city’s initial concept plan to include the school site along with the traffic mitigation strategies. 

The concept plan went to public consultation from April 15 to May 6 when 500 notices went to in the Westheath neighbourhood. There were 160 responses back, mostly favourable, but with suggestions on how to improve the design of the school. 

The concept includes 10.69 acres for the school and park. There will be 105 single-family lots and a one-acre multi-unit residential dwelling with about 25 units. 

The city is hoping that the school will be the community centre for the subdivision. 

“We're very excited about the opportunity to work with the schools and do the outdoor arena in that area because it's a fast-growing neighbourhood with lots of young children. There are opportunities for sharing hard surfaces for basketball and possibly even into the hard surface for a four-season arena,” said City Manager Jim Puffalt. 

The subdivision will have four roadways around the school and park, including two collector roads and two local roads. 

Dedicated south-facing off-street parking for staff and visitors at the school was worked into the design, and there will be a south-facing off-street “car drop” zone to help reduce congestion on the roadway. 

A car layby on the east road near the school will allow cars to drop off and pick up students with impeding traffic, and there will be a bus corral on the west side of the school, separate from the personal vehicle drop-off and parking on the south side of the school. 

The concept plan includes multiple mid-block crosswalks for extra safety and calm traffic near the school site. Two pedestrian-activated lights will be located on Wellington Drive. 

“There may be some future traffic calming that may be required in like long term after the schools open and to see how that works, but not anticipated to be huge cost with that,” said Director of Planning and Development Michelle Sanson. 

Phase five of the project will consist of 36 lots as well as the school. The city’s cost will be $125,000 for lot servicing, while the rest will be covered by the provincial government as part of the school project. 

There was some concern about water pressure from the South Hill Reservoir Pumphouse, by Director of Engineering Bevan Harlton said it has been an ongoing issue that should be addressed right away. 

“There's enough volume in South Hill, but where the issues will come up will be in pressure, so that will further require the need to upgrade pumps and drives in that reservoir and pumphouse, which is something we're proposing in this forthcoming budget,” Harlton said. 

The city is estimating that phase five will be a net revenue of $3.9 million.