A city staff report on the proposed closure of a public high school in south Sarnia favours keeping SCITS open and closing St. Clair.
A 29 page document submitted by Alan Shaw, the Acting Director of Planning and Building, has been released to the public on the city website.
The report assesses the impacts of the closure of either SCITS or St. Clair taking numerous factors into account including community facilities, parks and open space, heritage value, building conditions, economic impact and redevelopment potential.
It concludes that while the closure of either school will likely have impacts on adjacent areas, staff believes the St. Clair Secondary School site offers greater opportunities for residential redevelopment, and closing it would appear to have less impact on the surrounding community.
The report states that SCITS is in a designated mixed use area adjacent to some of the most vulnerable commercial and residential areas in the city and that it has significant cultural heritage value. It says that shutting another important socio-cultural community facility in the city's southwest quadrant may cause the closure of several businesses in the short term and far more severe impacts in the long term if the SCITS building can not be effectively repurposed.
It's recommended city council forward the report to the public school board for inclusion in its final pupil accommodation report.