As Ontario cities grapple with terrible traffic on our roads, our politicians examine how to improve moving people around our city. One way is to walk more. But many children in our urban centres can’t walk to school because they are barred from their local school. Why?
Growth areas in Ontario cities are not given access to the same funds from developers as other regions of the Province are. These funds are aptly named Education Development Charges (EDC’s). They are outdated. As a consequence: school boards cannot put additions on schools in order to house new students, cannot build new schools as they are needed and are maxed-out in portables littering their fields.
Buying a condo? Better check if the local school takes kids from that condo!
Thousands of children who could walk to school in Toronto are driven to school, clogging roads in school zones.
Other results of old-fashioned EDC regulations?
• over 100,000 students in #Ontario are in substandard building conditions: portables
• only students in suburban school boards (that have available land) benefit from EDC’s
• our cities loses local schools & local playgrounds as school boards are forced to sell buildings by Prov. Gov’t, even if there is a temporary drop in enrolment, and even if they know that the building will be needed in a few years
• children in new developments are barred from their local school & must be driven to a school some distance from their home
• public assets are being sold by Provincial Gov’t, but not to the highest bidder
What can you do to reduce traffic on your city? Write to your local MPP to change the EDC regulations so that all students in Ontario are provided “adequate accommodation” as the Education Act requires. If developers are choosing to build in a certain area, in large part it’s because of good schools their buyers can go to, so surely to goodness if a developer is benefitting . . . then they should contribute back.