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The troubled development of Albany Senior High School has taken a step forward, with commissioners coming back with suggested "significant modifications" of plans.
The recommendations were so detailed they included a request to have a specialist herpetologist mount a salvage operation for lizards before any bush was cleared for the project.
Also in the decision to Minister of Education Chris Carter was moving the planned buildings closer to Albany Highway to protect more bush on the site and increasing the height to 24m in the middle to make up for lost floor space from the suggested removal of a western portion.
It followed a hearing that began in November last year.
The school - held up by the Government as part of a flagship of the new junior high and senior high model - was supposed to open on its permanent site next year, taking about 300 students into their last three years of high school.
But a series of delays will see an "initial campus" of removable buildings open on a section of the junior high site next year, while the permanent senior high school is finished.
The original $47 million for the development - planned on the original site of the first Albany School - was expected to rise significantly.
The senior high's roll is projected to grow to 1500 and aims to cater for the huge growth that saw Albany's population rise from 1400 in 1991 to more than 10,000 in 2006.
North Shore mayor Andrew Williams welcomed the commissioners' decision and described the site of the planned school as "difficult and challenging".
"The level of detailed analysis and re-design shows just how seriously they are taking the need for a senior high school on this site," he said.
Education Minister Chris Carter said the conditions the commissioners put on the use of the site were being worked through by the ministry and the council.
School board of trustees acting chairman Philip Voss said the board was yet to have a formal briefing on the commissioners' recommendations from the ministry.
He said the board was still to form a response to it and it was impossible to know if further delays would result.
