Possible plan for parks, rec centres will get public feedback this summer

By COLLIN GALLANT on June 17, 2021.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

An overview of a parks and recreation that will look at revamping some centralized parks and potentially closing certain community rec centres will go to a city committee by month end before it is sent out for public consultation.

Monday’s meeting of the public services committee heard the general timeline of the master plan update requested by council during budget discussions late last year.

Talks with user groups have taken place this spring, and the general public will be asked its opinion in July and August before the report is finalized and put to council in October.

“So far we’ve spent a lot of time discussing high level concepts but we haven’t discussed the consultation, and we’ll need to do that before any decisions are made,” said committee member Coun. Kris Samraj.

The committee previously heard that a new strategy for park development could see more investment made to group new programming spaces and equipment in main, centralized locations rather than smaller scale neighbourhood parks.

As well, a review of major capital projects and a cost-benefit of centralized versus community facilities is underway, but council members on Monday also had questions about fees and usage.

Both the Moose Recreation centre arena and Crestwood Recreation centre and pool remained closed this year as administrators said reopening under pandemic restrictions would have been too costly considering current demand from the public.

As well, administrators are studying whether previously scheduled maintenance spending at the facilities would be better spent elsewhere.

Parks director James Will said renovations to the pool in Crestwood and rink slab at the Moose would bring the facilities back to standard, but not add to the facilities, whereas spending elsewhere could improve offering to the public.

“I view it as having an old farm truck and deciding whether to replace the engine,” he told the committee.

He also stated that early sessions have outlined several key user groups finding the favoured innovation and better use of “undeveloped areas” as well as concern that new costs, such as maintenance of aging facilities and other upgrades would be difficult to pass on to users.

Samraj noted that early in the council term, policy was push administrators to realign fees to reduce the operating deficits and lower the relative burden on the tax base.

“We hard certain targets (for cost recovery) and as far as I know we’re not there yet,” he said.

Coun. Julie Friesen says it is difficult to discern the point at which costs become a factor in usage, but was confident the department could track general usage using national trends and demographic information.

As well, to what extent the pandemic has changed behaviour and for how long is hard to know at this point.

“It’s very difficult to plan where demand will be,” she said. “Fees are a part of that, but patterns change.”