In plain language · Published October 7, 2026
The new school, in plain language.
$57.7M
That's what the Province has now committed to replace Kincardine District Senior School: approved at $26.5 million in 2019-20, raised to $57,722,137 this June, for 1,007 student spaces, grades 7 to 12.
No file in this campaign gets asked about more, and none carries more rumour per verified fact. So here is the whole picture: what the public record shows, what I found when I went and asked, and what the Municipality told all of us candidates in writing this week. Same deal as every page on this site: sources at the bottom, and if I've got something wrong, tell me and it gets fixed with your name on the credit.
Where it actually stands
The money is committed. The school board received approval in December 2025 to buy a 15.71 acre property in Kincardine; the Board hasn't named the seller, and I won't guess. Because severances are public record, I went to Bruce County planning and asked about the land file, and it turned out to be further along than the public record showed: the consent applications associated with the school project, files B-2025-104 and B-2025-105, were provisionally approved on May 20, 2026. What remains is the conditions attached to that approval, and the design and tender work that belongs to the Board.
The conditions, and the two-year clock
Most of those conditions run through the Municipality: a development agreement covering roads, servicing, stormwater and parkland; written confirmation of cost-sharing for road extensions and stormwater infrastructure; road reserves; a Drainage Act item; a parkland payment. On timing, the Municipality's written answer puts it plainly: the applicant has two years to fulfil the conditions, and they "can be satisfied at any point within the two years." A conditions window is not a construction schedule, in either direction. It's the legal room the paperwork has to finish in, and it runs from May 20, 2026.
What the municipality says, as of October 5
This week I sent the Municipality four written questions about this file. The Clerk's office answered the same day and sent the answer to every candidate, which is exactly how it should work. What the municipality confirmed: it "continues to work actively with the applicant, as we do with all developers," and CAO Alan Smith is the lead staff member on the file. What it won't do, as standing practice, is give running updates on negotiations in progress, to the public or to council members, until a council decision is required. It gave the reason too: protecting the integrity of the process, and not creating expectations from information that may still change.
My translation, and it's my reading of the record, not the municipality's announcement: quiet is what this system looks like while it's working, and the quiet has defined exits. News becomes public when the developer agrees to release it, when something needs a council decision, and when sharing it won't harm the Municipality's position. The development agreement is one of those council moments, which means it lands at an open meeting, on an agenda anyone can read.
Who decides what
Two provincial laws rewired approvals like this in 2022, and they change what any candidate, me included, can honestly promise you. Bill 109 removed councils as the approval authority for site plans; in Kincardine that authority is delegated to the CAO, and a project like this still goes through site plan control, with no building permit until that approval exists. So the municipal half of this file has two doors. Site plan approval is staff's door, by provincial design, built for speed. The development agreement is council's door. If I'm elected, the second door is a vote I'll cast in public, and the first is where I'll ask for published timelines.
| Gate | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Provincial capital fundingMinistry of Education | Approved: $57,722,137 for 1,007 student spaces | Jun 2026 |
| Land purchase approvalMinistry and the school board | Approved: 15.71 acres | Dec 2025 |
| SeveranceBruce County · files B-2025-104, B-2025-105 | Provisionally approved; conditions to fulfil within two years | May 20, 2026 |
| Conditions and development agreementMunicipality and applicant · agreement comes to council | In progress; the municipality is working actively with the applicant | Oct 5, 2026 |
| Site plan approvalCAO, by provincial law | Follows; no building permit without it | — |
| Design and tenderBluewater District School Board | The Board's lane | — |
| Completion dateBluewater District School Board | None announced, and I won't invent one | — |
I'll keep this table current on this page until there's an official tracker to point you to instead. Last checked against the Municipality's written answer of October 5, 2026.
So when do shovels hit?
The honest answer: nobody has announced a completion date, and inventing one here wouldn't make it truer. What I can give you is the order of operations and who owns each step, and that's the table above. What I said in September stands, and it's the only promise this page makes: our gates will never be the reason it waits.
What I'd push for
A named municipal reviewer and a published turnaround commitment the day the site plan application lands, with the fees within our control handled so they are never the holdup. Servicing confirmed in writing early: water and sewer allocation reserved, and any pumping station work scheduled and funded before the application arrives rather than after. A joint-use agreement if the Municipality contributes anything to the gym, the fields or the track, so they serve the whole community after the school day ends. And a plan for the current KDSS property started now, because what happens to that site is squarely a municipal decision, and deciding early gives the Board, the neighbourhood and the municipality a cleaner path. One honesty note: schools are already exempt from development charges under provincial law, so nobody gets to take credit for a charge that was never going to apply.
Found something in the record I missed or misread? hello@voteshah.ca. If you're right, it gets fixed here, dated, and you get the credit.
Sources: Ministry of Education capital approvals as published on the Bluewater District School Board's New Build KDSS page · Kincardine Record, December 22, 2025 (land purchase approval) · Bruce County consent files B-2025-104 and B-2025-105, provisional approval May 20, 2026 · Municipality of Kincardine, written answer to candidate questions, October 5, 2026, quoted as received · Staff report Development Services-2023-05 and the Site Plan Control (2023) By-law (site plan authority delegated to the CAO; approval required before a building permit). The water and sewer picture is its own page: the 282-page plan, in plain language.
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