THE Selinger government’s decision to buy a “field of dreams” for Gordon Bell high school will cost the Winnipeg School Division at least $27,800 in taxes every year, city records show.On Tuesday, the province announced it will pay Canada Post $3.8 million for a triangular patch of vacant land bounded by Portage Avenue, Broadway and Borrowman Place. The 2.5-acre property, which once housed Midway Chrysler, was slated to become a letter-sorting depot before community activists lobbied for more inner-city green-space.
In 2007, the last year Midway Chrysler owned the land, the property generated slightly more than $71,000 in city and provincial taxes, including $27,300 in municipal property taxes, $27,800 for the Winnipeg School Division and $16,000 in provincial education support levies, city records show.
The land would have generated even more revenue as a letter-sorting facility, said city assessor Nelson Karpa.
“It is accurate to say that rehabilitated as a Canada Post building, it would have made more,” he said in an interview.
As a school property, the triangular field will not generate any tax revenue.
“Under the Municipal Act, schools are exempt,” Karpa said. “The school division is out money, as are school divisions in general.”
On the positive side of the tax ledger, Canada Post’s decision to move its letter-sorting depot to the West Alexander neighbourhood should result in some new revenue for the city and province. The Crown corporation plans to bulldoze existing properties at Ellen Street and McDermot Avenue.
“Certainly, if you were to tear down older rental housing and put up a modern building, the end structure would have a higher value,” Karpa said.
Point Douglas Coun. Mike Pagtakhan, who represents West Alexander, said he’s happy to see redevelopment in the inner-city neighbourhood.
A city property-department memo obtained by the Free Press in June warned the field would have “a real penitentiary feel” because a three-metre-high chain link fence must be built around its perimeter.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/decision-costly-to-school-divisions-tax-base-78850137.html
Yet the “Other Side of the Storey”
Gordon Bell’s green dream will be realized.
The province and Canada Post have struck a deal that will give the inner-city high school some much-needed recreational and green space.
Education Minister Nancy Allan told an exuberant crowd in the West Broadway school gymnasium the province will be kicking in $5.3 million for the project on the site of the former Midway Chrysler property just to the west of Gordon Bell High School at Borrowman Place and Portage Avenue. The province will spend $3.8 million to buy the land from Canada Post and another $1.5 million to develop it.
Allan praised students, staff, parents and other community organizers for their perseverance in bringing the plan for the 2.5 acres of land to fruition.
“Most of all, I’d like to thank the students,” Allan said. “You had a vision, you had a dream, you never gave up … you believed this is what was best for your community.”
Canada Post had been planning to build its new downtown distribution centre on the lot adjacent to Gordon Bell but has located an alternative site near Ellen Street and McDermot Avenue.
Grade 12 student Johnathan Kopchuk said he was overjoyed plans for the green space came through.
“I’m just really happy we won’t have to play on concrete anymore,” Kopchuk said. “We’ll get to play outside on some of that good old green grass stuff.”
http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/winnipeg/2009/12/09/12088606-sun.html
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