Aurora College agrees to end deal that reserved Yellowknife's Tin Can Hill for campus

Yellowknife city council is poised to terminate an agreement that reserves Tin Can Hill for the construction of polytechnic university campus — and Aurora College says it's fine with that.

The college's president, Dr. Angela James, said in an emailed statement to CBC News that terminating the memorandum of understanding signed earlier by the college and the city would allow "other uses for the property ... [to] be considered."

The city's manager said earlier that both the college and the N.W.T. government were "equally interested in" seeing the deal end. 

"There's been a change in planning from our colleagues at Aurora College to suggest that they're not looking to realize that vision for that particular site anytime soon," Stephen Van Dine said during a committee meeting, earlier on Monday afternoon. 

Van Dine said he's had several recent discussions with the territory's education department and the college since writing a letter to James about how progress had stalled on the project. He said "both parties seem to be in agreement that this [memorandum of understanding] is no longer needed for the purpose of a campus at that location." 

The city signed the memorandum that earmarked the much-loved greenspace along Yellowknife Bay as the intended site of the campus in 2022. Late last year the college said it would need $400 million to move the project forward. An environmental assessment also said arsenic contamination found in soil in the area would need to be managed and treated. 

James said Aurora College was giving up on the Tin Can Hill property because of the proposed cost, a lack of funding, and "uncertainty around the cost of any potential environmental remediation required." 

Mayor Rebecca Alty and all eight councillors at the governance and priorities meeting on Monday said they wanted the agreement to be ended, and that they'd vote to do so at a full council meeting next week. For Alty, it was because progress had been slowed to the point where conditions in the city's land purchase agreement hadn't been upheld.

Coun. Tom McLennan also pointed out that the discussion was about the memorandum of understanding specifically, and not about rezoning or preparing the land for a different development. 

The recommendation from civic administration referenced the city's "need for developable land" as part of the reason for its position, which Coun. Ryan Fequet said was "confusing" and "resulted in a lot of emails and concern from constituents." 

Van Dine confirmed the city did not have other plans to develop the land and that if it did, those discussions would have a "high level of visibility and transparency" and "ample opportunity" for public input.

In her statement, James said Aurora College will make no decisions about other potential sites for a campus in Yellowknife "until such time as funding is identified."