Dozens of speakers queued up over the phone and in person to speak at Vancouver City Hall Thursday evening to weigh in about a proposed new elementary school in Olympic Village.

While the school has been in the works for twenty years, plans have recently been revised to double the number of students it can accommodate, from 300 to over 600, with the number of storeys going from three to four.

A rezoning application filed last year has drawn the ire of many in the community, with residents saying they are concerned about traffic congestion and the removal of green space at Hinge Park, where the school will be built. In July 2025, the Vancouver School Board told CityNews in a statement that they were working on a traffic-management plan for the school.

“This proposed school plan does not work,” one of the speakers said at Thursday’s public hearing.

“The location was chosen decades ago. My ideal school location would be on some of the vacant land on 1st Avenue and/or closer to the Cambie Bridge.”

Parents, on the other hand, came to describe the situation as it stands now, with no school in the otherwise family-friendly neighbourhood.

“According to the last census, held five years ago, Olympic Village has by far the highest density of children residents under the age of 14 of any neighbourhood in the entire city — at that time 800 kids under 14 years in only eight city blocks,” one parent shared.

The catchment school for Olympic Village – Simon Fraser Elementary – is 16 blocks away and is over capacity, meaning the school district holds a lottery for students entering kindergarten.

The rezoning application needs to be approved before construction begins in 2027. The new school is scheduled to open its doors in 2030.

Council will take a vote on the school Feb. 26.

— With files from David Nadalini