A new community group, the Southwest Central Oakville Residents Association (SCORA), is calling on the Halton Catholic District School Board and the Town to scrap some of the existing ideas being floated for the school in favour of plans which the group believes will preserve the environmental character of the area.

"We were formed to protect our community from the perceived environmental impact of this project," said Lawrence Quinn of SCORA's founding committee.

"We are not even remotely against the rebuilding of St. Thomas Aquinas. We just want it done in a way that is environmentally friendly."

Current plans call for the new high school to open in September 2010.

The group has a number of key issues with the direction the project is currently taking, including the school's increased size, which they say will destroy considerable portions of the area's existing green space.

"We're essentially taking 11 or 12 acres of green including a forest area and a creek and basically paving the whole thing over," said Quinn. "From an environmental perspective it's going to be a heartbreaker."

The group fears the location of the new school building will result in the removal of 100-150 mature trees, especially from the area of Lakeshore Road and Dorval Drive. They are also opposed to the new lights planned for the school's future sports field.

"This means we're going to have our backyards lit up until at least 11:30 p.m., seven days a week," said Quinn.

"So we've got light pollution and we've got noise pollution (from cheering crowds) because we didn't have a night-time facility there before."

The group also has concerns about a new road they said the Board plans build in the area that will connect Rebecca Street to Lakeshore Road.

"That's carving into the green space. It's carving a hole at least 30-40 feet through forest, all for the sake of adding a new road and we don't believe for one second that road is necessary with some creative design around the circulation within the school property," said Quinn.

"Also, every morning and every afternoon there's going to be somewhere between 280 and 500 cars trying to get in or out. It's going to be gridlock down there."

On the other side of this issue, the Halton Catholic District School Board noted that the parents and students of St. Thomas Aquinas have been campaigning for improvements to the learning environment at the school for years and now they are going to get access to the same educational facilities as other secondary schools in Halton.

Superintendent of Facility Management Services Giacomo Corbacio outlined what the school will be like when it is complete.

"We're going to make it a compact, three-storey school situated on the corner of Lakeshore and Dorval," he said.

"It will have a gymnasium, hopefully a theatre and it will have the tech shops that are not in place now at the school, which there has been a demand for. We'll be putting in more infrastructure to support the new health sciences curriculum program that we have in the school. Then there will be all the other science labs and specialty rooms that are normal with a secondary school."

The school will also feature an artificial turf sports field, which will be available for public use, via permit, when not being used by the school.

"The community will have access to the school itself, the indoor facilities as well as the outdoor surface," said Corbacio. "That's part of our reciprocal agreement with the Town."

Corbacio is aware of the opposition that exists to some of the school's features and pointed out that the board is trying to alleviate people's concerns, where possible.

On the issue of the sports field lights, Corbacio said high tech, modern lights will be used, which will only focus on the sports field and, he says, thereby reduce the glare nearby residents will have to deal with.

He also noted that the worries about how often the field will be used at night are exaggerated.

"It won't be on until 11 p.m. or 11:30 p.m. It will only be on if there's someone who wants to use the facility because it will only be turned on if there's a permit for it," he said. "I'm sure there will be a curfew time probably around 10 p.m. or shortly thereafter at the very most."

On the subject of the new road, Corbacio pointed out that it is in fact not a road, but rather a driveway entrance, which he said will improve traffic flow for the site.

"A requirement of the Town of Oakville is to do a traffic study and that study has been done and it actually demonstrates that that proposal is a good thing for the community," he said.

"The only time that entrance would be used where there would be a concern is during the morning and afternoon drop-offs and pickups and that would only be for a 15-minute period. A number of students will be bused to this area and I imagine they'll be using the Rebecca Street entrance. So there will be very little traffic using the entrance off Holyrood Avenue."

On the area tree removal, Corbacio said he's not sure where people are getting the idea that 100-150 mature trees will be removed, but he does point out that some tree removal will be necessary.

Since the St. Thomas Aquinas students can't be moved to another facility while the new school is built over two years, Corbacio noted, the existing school must be left intact while the new facility is set up some distance away at the corner of Lakeshore Road and Dorval Drive.

Corbacio also said that new trees would be planted to replace anything that is removed.

SCORA is not impressed.

"We have full blown photographs of most of the Catholic school board's developments and if you go see the trees they planted seven years ago they're basically twigs burning up in an asphalt parking lot," said Quinn.

"They're basically installed in islands in the parking lots so they get no rooting system and the asphalt acts like a heat sink in the summer time and just fries them. So those trees are going nowhere. They're going to stay stunted. Also, they're talking about removing a tree that has a seven-foot diameter and replacing it with a tree that has a one to two inch caliber. It will be 50 years before we're even talking apples for apples here."

Quinn is calling on the school board to rethink the current design. He said a more vertical structure would spare the green space and still allow St. Thomas Aquinas to have an improved facility.

In response to the criticism facing some of the plans for the new St. Thomas Aquinas, Corbacio reiterated that every effort will be made to accommodate the concerns, but at the end of the day reality must reign.

"Based on the tone of some of the letters I've seen, some people don't want anything to change there and that's really not a realistic option to the school board at this time," said Corbacio. "The parents and students have been petitioning for a number of years and rightly so as improvements are required for that facility."

Both the school board and Town officials point out the process of finalizing the final plans for St. Thomas Aquinas is nowhere near completion. There are still opportunities for the public to weigh in on what they would like to see for the area.

"The site plan information has not been submitted to our staff yet," said Fred Oliver, Ward 2 Town Councillor. "We expect most of the information or all of it will be in by the first of September."

Oliver also said that he has heard the concerns residents have about some of the school's proposed features, but couldn't comment because it is still very early in the process and he doesn't have all the facts, yet.

"The application and the information will be coming to staff, then the staff who receive it will send it out to the various departments that are involved for their comments and then they will prepare a report for council," said Oliver.

"There will be meetings where the public can have a say before that and at council meetings."

Although it's early in the process, SCORA feels this is a perfect time to begin raising awareness. The group has collected more than 300 signatures on a petition calling for a halt to some of the new St. Thomas Aquinas's proposed features.

"Time is of the essence for us," said Quinn."If we don't get our appeals and our concerns known, the city would undergo its review process in the absence of community concern."