Remains are more than 50 years old
By LANCE HOLDFORTH, Special to the Examiner

The coroner has determined that bones found in the crawl space of the century-old Allandale train station are human.

Barrie police Det. Robert McLeod said the bones are more than 50 years, meaning it’s no longer a police investigation. The case now falls under the Cemetery Act.

“Once they’re over 50 years old, it’s treated as a cemetery and they are over 50 years old according to the expert,” McLeod said. “It looks like some kind of burial of some sort, which is the same as if you were digging up your swimming pool in the backyard and come across it.”

The City of Barrie will take over the investigation.

The Lakeshore Drive site’s restoration expert found the bones just under the sandy surface against the back wall while preparing the building for concrete pouring on Monday.

The person’s cause of death and gender haven’t been determined, but McLeod says the remains are in one area of the crawl space, which could mean there are more bones buried beneath.

“They’re pieces of bones, so the entire skeleton is possibly there, but we won’t know that until the archeologist goes in and starts doing their dusting and sifting,” he said. “They’re not scattered. They’re all within a small area, but it’s not like they uncovered a skeleton sitting there.”

The original station was built in 1853, but the remains were found in the basement of a 1905 addition.

Following several of years of vacancy, the station buildings are being refurbished. However, construction has been halted in the basement, which is now considered an archeological site.

“The City of Barrie will now have the archeologist come in and do their process they should be able to answer more questions at that time,” McLeod said.

Stan Mclean is no stranger to the railroad, having worked in the Allandale yard of the train station for more than 25 years.

“I started working there in ’51,” he said. “I can’t remember anything bad happening when I was there, but it was really busy. It was really going.”

Mclean said the train station was a hub for local travel at the time the bones are dated, but added he thought it was an aboriginal burial site.

“I just thought it was some old Indian bones, but I never thought much about until I heard they were human,” he said. “I thought they would be about 100 years old.”

The area where the bones were found will remain part of the investigation while restorations continue to the rest of the building, but Mclean says he remembers the building in its original form.

“That (building where bones were found) used to be an office building when I was around. I think it was a telegraph department when I started,” he said. “There’s a basement you can get in from a door on the outside on the north side of the building. I’ve only been in there once or twice.”

The Ministry of Consumer Services, which oversees cemeteries in the province, requested the city hire archeologists to proceed with the investigation to determine if the bones are native or non-native.

The city hired AMICK Consultants, which has offices in Port McNicoll and London, Ont.

McLeod said if signs of foul play do arise, a full investigation would be launched, but he thinks that’s unlikely.

news@thebarrieexaminer.com

Simcoe Article: Allandale land for sale in the fall.

Janis Ramsay, jramsay@simcoe.com

BARRIE – The Allandale station lands will be up for sale this fall.
The value of the land has previously been estimated at $3 million, and any developer that buys it will have to pay a further $1.8 million for improvements to the land.
General manager of infrastructure, development and culture Richard Forward said whoever buys the land should pay an extra $1.8 million for the tunnel underpass from Gowan onto the property and for the Gowan Street roadwork and sewer repairs.
“It’s not uncommon for the city to request the developer to pay for services,” Forward said. “We are not asking the developer to pay for the Gowan Street road works, we are asking the developer to pay for internal road works to the site that benefit development on the site.”
He said Park Place developer North American Development Group is paying for “the internal servicing improvements, (and) they are also paying for external road works to the site.”
Ward 10 Coun. Alex Nuttall, however, didn’t think it was fair to ask a developer to pay $1.8 million extra for roadwork and the GO Train underpass by Gowan Street.
“To charge a developer for the underpass, used by the provincial government’s GO Transit users, seems wrong to me,” said Nuttall. “And to charge a developer for roads that are being used by the city, the development, GO and eventually Re/Max seems wrong to me. Everyone should pair a fair share and not a penny more or less.”
Forward said the underpass is costing the city $3 million to build, and the developer is only being asked to pay $850,000 towards it. Forward also thought a $950,000 bill for Gowan Street road repairs was appropriate to hand to a developer.
Nevertheless, Nuttall said it was unfortunate council couldn’t agree to make a counter offer to The Correct Group of Companies, a developer that has spent three years working on a proposal for the land.
“We’ve invested three years on debate and to say we need more time is incorrect,” Nuttall said. “Time is passing by, along with tax money we could’ve earned.”
As Nuttall tried to nix the $950,000 roadwork bill and drop the underpass payment to $425,000, he said: “I’m very tired of having project after project here, then (we’re) throwing someone to the curb and three years later we still have nothing.”
“We don’t have a good record with purchase of sales,” he said.
Council disagreed with Nuttall, though, and wanted to see any future developer cough up more cash for the site.
“Developers are big boys and understand what they’re getting into,” said Ward 7 Coun. John Brassard. “We’re asking them to pay for something they normally pay for.”
And while Ward 2 Coun. Lynn Strachan and Ward 6 Coun. Michael Prowse wanted to see the property up for sale, they agreed there should be opportunities for something different.
Council had considered splitting the land into four parcels and selling them individually, but agreed to sell the land to only one developer.
“We’ve diluted this worse and worse and have gone from something dynamic and new to something that’s not particularly exciting,” said Prowse.
Mayor Jeff Lehman told council it was time to get moving on something, and council passed the motion to put the land up for sale.

The Barrie Advance http://www.simcoe.com/community/barrieinnisfil/article/933158

BARRIE – The public has its last chance to bring ideas forward to save Barrie Central at tonight’s public meeting.

“This is the third public meeting and at the next one, scheduled for Feb. 22, the committee will present its findings,” said Stuart Bailey, the ARC member who will outline the options. “(Tonight) is the first real opportunity to see the options the Accommodation Review Committee has come up with and provide feedback.”

Over the past several months, the ARC discussed an array of information and came up with alternatives, which were whittled down to two last week.

One includes closing Barrie Central and sending its students to Barrie North – which would then take over Oakley Park elementary school across the street.

The other is to keep the Barrie Central community intact until at least 2016 so partnerships could be explored and strengthened. This would ultimately create a “super school” that would accommodate as many as 2,000 students who would come for specialized programs, such as arts, said Bailey.

“It would give us time to understand where the growth pressures in the city will be and time to understand the funding opportunities. It would prevent kids from going into portables,” he said.

On the agenda to speak is Dr. Werner Fabian, who has a practice on Toronto Street.

“My concern is the city gets more and more emptied,” he said. “They’re squeezing life out of the inner city and the emptier it gets, the worse it becomes to live. That’s what we’re battling here.”

Former CFB Borden heating supervisor Murray Welch, meanwhile, plans to ask questions during the open microphone session. He said the board came to a mistaken conclusion about Barrie Central and didn’t consult its maintenance staff for a best option to address the boilers.

The meeting takes place at the Fisher Auditorium, Barrie Central, at 7 p.m. tonight.

lwatt@simcoe.com

The Downtown Barrie Business Association wants your feedback regarding our downtown. Please click on the link below to complete a short survey and to tell them what you think of, what we need and the way you see Downtown Barrie.

http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e39bbtn7gijdi9y7/start

Downtown Barrie Business Association
4 Simcoe St. E., Barrie ON L4M 1A1 Phone: (705)734-1414 Fax: (705)734-1227

info@downtownbarrie.ca

By BOB BRUTON BARRIE EXAMINER

The name-game is on for Barrie’s second GO Transit train station.

The Allandale Neighbourhood Association and the newly formed Allandale Railway Historical Society gave city councillors a lesson Monday on the area’s rail history.

Both groups want the name ‘Allandale’ included in the new GO station’s name along Gowan Street. Its proposed name now is Barrie Waterfront.

“There are four organizations working to preserve and educate (people) on our rich rail history,” said Cathy Colebatch, of the ANA, also mentioning Heritage Barrie and the Barrie Historical Association. “This indicates a real interest in our rail history.

“We have a vision of our history and want to see it established.”

Barrie’s second GO Transit station is to be operational this year. The name of the city’s current GO station, in the south end, on Yonge Street, is being changed to St. Paul’s station in recognition of that area’s history.

Colebatch suggested ‘Allandale-Barrie’ or ‘Barrie-Allandale’ as names for the second GO station.

Mitchell Wilson, of the Allandale Railway Historical Society, told councillors how Barrie’s rail history dates back to the 1850s. Using a slideshow and a detailed explanation, Wilson explained how and why the railway is intertwined with Barrie’s history.

Council did not make a decision on the new GO station’s name on Monday.

It is part of a planned redevelopment of the nine acres of land at Tiffin Street and Lakeshore Drive near the city’s waterfront.

The former Allandale station is also being renovated by the city as part of this proposal, with an estimated $4.5 million price tag.

The city’s original tab for the restoration was $2 million, with the YMCA — which was a development partner with the Correct Group Inc. — picking up the remainder. But the Y withdrew from the redevelopment plan in January of 2010 for financing reasons.

Councillors were told in August of 2009 the station costs had jumped to $2.95 million, and in March of 2010 that they had increased to $3.4 million.

The entire bill now belongs to the city, which is responsible for the overall restoration and programming of the station and its immediate lands.

The former Allandale station is in bad shape, and was further damaged by a Jan. 4, 2009 fire. The city received $200,000 from insurance on the premises, but that did not cover the total cost of repairs.

But work is underway and is expected to be complete by the end of August.

Allandale Village, being developed by CGI, will be on more than half of the old Allandale train station property near Tiffin Street and Lakeshore Drive.

CGI wants the commercial/ residential portion of this project to be as large as 335,000 square feet on almost 4.7 acres of the nine-acre site. There would be five development areas and seven buildings as high as five storeys each of retail, commercial, office, condominium and hotel use.

There would be 224 residential units — half for hotel rooms, half for condominiums. It would take four to six years to build the entire project, with the first phase a minimum of 50,000 sq. ft. as soon as a building permit can be issued. And it’s expected that 65,000-70,000 sq. ft. will be built in each of the next five years, subject to the market and economic conditions.

CGI requires an approved site plan and building permits to move forward. The uses CGI is proposing on this property are allowed by the current zoning.

The employment impact of this development is expected to be 600 jobs, with significant permanent employment created as well.

There will be 471 parking spaces created on the land — 111 on the street and 360 underground.

bbruton@thebarrieexaminer.com

The Barrie Examiner. Raymond Bowe.

Tradition isn’t lost on the younger generation at Barrie Central Collegiate.

Both Chelsea Nash and Lauren Beaney come from a long line of Central students, each having a grandparent who attended the downtown school. Neither teenager wants to hold the distinction of being the last.

The Dunlop Street high school is officially on the Simcoe County District School Board’s chopping block, with planners hoping to have it mothballed in June 2012, due to deteriorating infrastructure and accessibility issues.

“The board is looking at this from a numbers perspective,” Nash said. “They’re not looking at it from an emotional perspective.”

In October 2008, the board identified Central as a top priority. Last February, board trustees passed a motion to review the city’s five high schools: Central, Barrie North, Innisdale, Bear Creek and Eastview. An accommodation review committee (ARC) met for the first time this week.

Members will meet throughout the fall and winter, with a final recommendation due to the board director by March 2.

The board wants to open a new high school in 2015 in the southeast part of Barrie, where the population is exploding, although the board has no funding for such the project. Enrolment is declining downtown, so there’s no plan to build a new school there.

If Central does close, students now in Grade 11 would be the last graduating class, something of which many pupils are keenly aware.

“There’s absolutely no point in closing it down — I think it’s great,” said Grade 11 student Haley Gill.

“Central is more of a family (than other high schools in the city), so it would be hard to tear us apart.”

Nash, also a Grade 11 student, says it doesn’t make sense to close Central and send the students to other city high schools that are already operating well above capacity.

“Build a new school, but why not fix this one up? It’s a good building,” Nash said, adding she doesn’t believe the facility is so far gone that it should close.

Nash said she loves everything about the school, all of which would be lost forever if it closes.

“It’s the people in this school, it’s the teachers who have given us every opportunity,” Nash said. “It’s the atmosphere. There are just so many benefits.

“Everyone knows each other,” she added. “You’d lose that. It wouldn’t be the same (at a new school), because everyone will be secluded with their group of friends.”

“We’re all very close,” said Grade 11 student Alyssa Hall of her classmates.

Sharona Haynes, who just entered Grade 9 at Central, says the smaller school environment means more opportunities for students.

“I don’t want to go anywhere else,” said Haynes, who lives close enough that she can walk to school, something she may not be able to do somewhere else.

Grade 11 student Kaili Lukan said it would be a shame to lose the school’s long athletic tradition. The school has a string of Georgian Bay rugby crowns, as well as last June’s provincial women’s title which Lukan contributed to.

“None of us want this to happen,” she said of the closure. “This (school) is part of our life. It’s not falling apart and it’s not like we need anything.”

An elevator could be easily installed to address accessibility, Lukan said.

“It would cost the board more to build a new school than to fix this one up,” she said.

Grade 10 student Victor Fillion said the school isn’t falling apart around him.

“It doesn’t look like it needs to close down at all,” he said. “I see no reason.”

Enrolment is expected to decline at Central, North and Eastview over the next decade before stabilizing. Bear Creek, which includes more than 500 students who will move to the new high school in Angus next fall, has about 2,000 students.

With less than 1,000 pupils, Central is the only school in the city operating below capacity.

The Barrie Examiner. Editorial, 25 September

At the very least, Barrie Central Collegiate students and their parents know the public school board’s intentions for their downtown high school.

Close it following the 2011- 2012 school year.

Shuffle its students to the city’s other four high schools, until a new one can be built in southeast Barrie.

Simcoe County District School Board planner Andrew Keuken told members of the accommodation review committee (ARC) this week that closing Central is what the board would do if it was forced to make a decision right now.It bears asking, then, why an ARC is necessary, why months of meetings and discussion need to take place if the starting point is that Central should close.

Shouldn’t the starting point be to determine if Central should close?

Shouldn’t the pros and cons of shuttering Barrie’s only downtown high school be debated?

Shouldn’t those who want to keep Central open be able to explain it to the school board, and to the ARC, without knowing it’s a done deal? And present the option of replacing Central with a new school on the same site?

To be fair, Keuken has said closing Central is not a done deal and that this is not set in stone. And at least he laid it out for ARC members, students, parents, etc.

Such frank talk would have been appreciated during the board’s process to close King Edward school in 2008 and its plans to mothball Prince of Wales School next year.

Issues at Central such as asbestos, accessibility and a failing infrastructure — the heating system — were identified a few years ago. And Central’s enrolment is expected to decline during the next decade.

But there are, or at least there should be, immediate questions about closing Central — purely from a common-sense perspective.

The school board, for example, wants to open its new city high school in 2015. There’s no money to build it, not a cent.

Second, the schools where Central students are to attend after 2011 and before 2015 — Eastview, North, Bear Creek and Innisdale — are already far past full. Innisdale, for example, is at 160% capacity, while Bear Creek is at 147%.

This is good news for portable classroom manufacturers, bad news for the Central students who will be shoe-horned into already bulging classrooms.

Closing Central is also bad news for Barrie city council, city planners and even private developers.

The provincial government has designated the city central core as a growth area. It’s supposed to be a complete community, where people can live, work and play. Shouldn’t that include schools?

When couples with children consider a neighbourhood in which to live, they look for schools close by.

So the public school board is not helping city council’s efforts to revitalize downtown Barrie. King Edward School, on the downtown’s fringe, is closed (Unity Christian High School is there now). Prince of Wales is closing and now Central looks like it will suffer the same fate.

None of this means Barrie Central supporters should give up the fight. The school has less than 1,000 students, which is 90% capacity, but that is still a significant number of voices. They have parents and friends. There are Central alumni.

All need to be heard, and they will know if it’s just lip service.

But they are certainly starting from a distinct disadvantage, knowing the board’s intentions.

The Barrie Advance. Editorial, Sep 23, 2010 – 6:00 AM

The elephant has been clearly highlighted in bright red pen.

Barrie Central Collegiate is on the Simcoe County District School Board’s radar in a bad way. After Tuesday night’s inaugural meeting, the Barrie ARC has set out to close BCC.

The thing is, who’s surprised?

Not the school’s students, not the school’s parent representative and certainly not us.

Not Barrie Ward 2 Coun. Jeff Lehman, who asked, “What did you expect? (SCDSB associate director) Carol McAulay said it six months ago.”

When you set a school up to fail from the get-go, you aren’t surprising anyone when you peg closing it as the best, most financially prudent option.

The SCDSB has harped on about how the school is prohibitive to repair, and how the boiler system is staring at imminent failure. Fine. But why not look at effective ways to fix these problems?

In other parts of the board’s jurisdiction, we have under-capacity schools staying open. Here, in Barrie, Central is at capacity in a part of town set to grow, yet the ARC has decided closing it is best.

But closing Central would see its students shuffled off to other schools already at or over capacity. It just doesn’t make sense. Central is an essential piece in Barrie’s downtown growth and closing it shouldn’t be the board’s first conclusion.

How can Barrie’s downtown grow effectively and become the complete, booming community the province intends when the board has already succeeded in closing the elementary school (Prince of Wales) and has now picked the same fate for the high school?

The only thing we can say is, at least the board’s being open from the get go.

Ward 5 Coun. Lynn Strachan, the city’s representative on the ARC, summed it up nicely: “I was really happy they came forward with this at the beginning, because we know what we’re up against.”

The fight is on to save Central.

The Barrie Advance. Laurie Watt, STAFF, Sep 22, 2010 – 7:30 PM

BARRIE – At least the community knows what it’s up against: the case to close Barrie Central was made public Tuesday night.

The Accommodation Review Committee on Barrie secondary schools met for the first time – and was told the school board plans to close Central in June 2012, and redistribute its students.

“What did you expect? (SCDSB associate director) Carol McAulay said it six months ago,” said Barrie Ward 2 Coun. Jeff Lehman.

“When you get the preferred outcome at the beginning, you have to question the integrity of the process. I hope (the school board) will be genuinely interested in the other options.”

Closing Central would increase overcrowding at the city’s other high schools, the board’s staff report shows, however.

Barrie North would take the most of Central’s 995 students  – 614 of them – although North is already over capacity. Today, the school has 1,318 students, although it is built to hold only 1,146.

The board’s plan also calls for 128 Central students to move to Innisdale – which is already even more over-capacity than North. Today, Innisdale has 1,778 students and 12 portables.

Bear Creek would take 113 Central students, including its special-needs students, although it too is over capacity, with 2,070 students and a building that can house 1,407.

Changing demographics improve the situation slightly, as a bubble of students moves through the secondary system and numbers drop over the short term.

However, Barrie – especially its downtown – is set to grow, as Ontario has designated the city the only urban growth centre north of the GTA. Ontario has told Barrie it must triple the population in the city core, as well as accommodate 40 per cent of future growth within the existing built boundary.

Still, the public school board is proposing closing Central and then later asking for provincial funding for a new high school in the southeast.

“The ARC process pits community against community, parts of cities against parts of cities. There is no reason at all why the oldest institution in the city has to close if there are willing partners to help,” said Lehman, who has suggested the city would support creating an education hub – with athletic fields, a theatre, and a university – on the edge of downtown, which must be more diverse and more of a service centre than it already is.

The public school board has been refusing to deal with an ARC in the county’s north end, which is keeping both Midland and Penetanguishene high schools open – although both are half empty. The ARC recommended closing Penetanguishene Secondary and sending teens to nearby Midland Secondary.

Barrie Central parent representative Stuart Bailey said he’s disappointed not just in the closure recommendation, but the lack of rationale substantiating it.

“What’s more disappointing is that it was the only option the board considered and it has significant impact in terms of money and in terms of impact on families. It didn’t seem to have a lot of analysis,” he said.

“It seems the accommodation review committee is doing the job of the board staff. I would have expected more analysis.”

Barrie Ward 5 Coun. Lynn Strachan sat on an ARC last year that recommended closing Prince of Wales and is the city appointee on the secondary ARC.

“They’re not looking at other criteria, such as value to students, value to the community or opportunities for partnerships,” she said.

“I was really happy they came forward with this at the beginning, because we know what we’re up against.”

Collingwood/Clearview Trustee Caroline Smith – who has been appointed to the ARC because she has one street that feeds into Barrie North – agreed at least people know what they’re dealing with.

“If you have an elephant in the room, do you want to know its name and its colour – or do you try to ignore it and walk around it? Hopefully, there will be a better chance for a good dialogue and people can find the elephant a better home,” she said.

“Sometimes people don’t like the information they’re given but they deserve the time to analyze it and come forward with ideas on how to resolve the issue.”

The ARC meets again Oct. 5, at 7 p.m. at Barrie North.

lwatt@simcoe.com

The Barrie Examiner, posted by STAFF on 14 September 2010

(STAFF) — The fate of Barrie Central Collegiate, among other schools, will be a hot topic next week.

The Simcoe County District School Board’s accommodation review committee (ARC) will hold its first working session at Barrie Central at 7 p.m. on Sept. 21.

The meeting is open to the public.

The school board’s reviews address enrolment, programming, and facility condition challenges.

Schools involved in the process include: Barrie Central, Barrie North Collegiate, Bear Creek Secondary School, Eastview Secondary School and Innisdale Secondary School.

Accommodation review areas throughout the County look at enrolment (too few or too many students), the ability to deliver programming (scheduling classes), and the condition of school buildings (need for repairs).

The committee will be holding numerous working sessions, and at least four public meetings from September to March.