Richmond City Coun. Harold Steves said he doesn't want the world-renowned Highway to Heaven to become a Highway of Schools.
But a proposal to stop any more schools from being built on the No. 5 Road strip was met with fierce opposition from faith-based groups on Tuesday evening. Highway to Heaven, while located in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) between Steveston Highway and Blundell Road, allows for religious institutions as long as the backland of the property is farmed.
The proposed changes to the Highway to Heaven backlands policy were brought in when a secular Richmond private school, Pythagoras Academy, applied to build a 10-acre school campus on a property they bought on the Highway to Heaven for $22.5 million.
Council rejected this application, prompting the proposed changes to restrict any new schools, dormitories and child care facilities on the strip.
But after four hours of public input on Tuesday evening from faith groups fearful of not being able to expand their existing schools on the Highway to Heaven, Richmond council’s planning committee took a step back and asked city staff to compile more information about current schools and their future plans.
About a dozen speakers from Cornerstone Christian Academy explained how their school is currently housed in portables and the “fear” they have is they won’t be able to build a proper school if these amendments are made to the rules around the Highway to Heaven.
Cornerstone vice-principal Charlotte Sakaki said the changes would “brand” all faith-based schools as “legally non-conforming,” which sends the message “you can be here legally, but you don’t belong here actually,” she said.
“We’re … looking to prevent the chilling effect that these changes would have upon the faith-based schools represented here and our own special situation at Cornerstone Christian Academy,” Sakaki told the planning committee.
Advocates for Richmond Christian School parents also argued for allowing the expansion of existing schools.
Superintendent Roger Grose said the school community is “fearful” of the changes, which could restrict future growth. Currently, the school has more than a thousand students.
One speaker pointed out the Catholic church has purchased a property on the Highway to Heaven for a regional Catholic high school, but, when asked, he said there aren’t any current plans to build a church on the property.
The proposed changes would alter the wording in the backlands policy from “community use” to “religious institutional use.”
Anne Yu, parent and founder of Pythagoras Academy, told the Richmond News the school was planning to challenge council’s rejection of their application. Michael Bouchard, principal of Pythagoras Academy, spoke at the meeting, saying their school is a “multi-faith” school.
When asked why the school isn’t looking for other sites, he replied that “we’ve looked long and hard and this is our best option.”
The planning committee sent the bylaw back to staff and asked them to talk to all the institutions on the Highway to Heaven, and find out how to grandfather in existing schools and in-stream applications, to look at how existing schools can expand and to assess the infrastructure implications of building more on the Highway to Heaven.
Coun. Alexa Loo voted against the referral.
