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Moncton council took an initial step Monday toward building an indoor pool over the coming years, voting for city staff to explore potential locations and partnership models for an aquatics centre.
The vote came after councillors were handed a city-commissioned study by Sierra Planning and Management Inc. examining the feasibility of new indoor or outdoor pools over the coming decade.
The Toronto firm used population, the number of existing pools in the region, as well as their use, to determine Moncton will need an aquatics centre within 10 years.
“So the message here is that, should the City of Moncton wish to get into the direct provision of aquatics, there is a need to plan for a new pool,” Jon Hack, a director with the company, told councillors Monday.
If the city’s growth continues the need rises to two aquatics centres by 2046, Hack said.
Jocelyn Cohoon, Moncton’s general manager of community services, said council will be asked to include money in future budgets for further planning.
“We know these — particularly the indoor multi-use facility, and the outdoor as well — they’re costly items and they’re certainly complicated projects,” Cohoon said in an interview about the next steps.
“We know with the experience of our two outdoor pools that we were back and forth to council a number of times, and that certainly will happen in this case.”
The study stemmed from the city’s recreation master plan approved earlier this year, which recommended an analysis of an aquatics centre.
There are no municipality owned indoor pools in the city. There is a publicly accessible pool at the downtown YMCA and limited access to a pool at Université de Moncton CEPS.
Dieppe has its own aquatics centre, while Riverview is planning a recreation centre with a pool that will replace an existing indoor pool.
The consultant’s report says the city should try to partner with U de M as it considers replacing its pool in the coming years so that the number of existing pools is maintained.
The report also suggests the city needs another outdoor pool in the northwest. It has two municipally owned outdoor pools that open in the summer. One is in Centennial Park and the other is in the east end near downtown.
The report says the proposed pool should be larger than the east end pool, but smaller than the one in Centennial Park.
The report recommended the city consider an indoor pool as part of a regional recreation centre with other features like a walking track, field house, and community rooms.
Otherwise, it suggested an addition to an existing recreational facility like the Coliseum.
Based on expected growth and feedback from public input, the report suggested the city’s north end for new aquatics facilities.
No specific site is recommended, though the report looked at several that are already publicly owned. The Coliseum complex or the university campus were considered the most feasible.
Hack said it would be up to city staff to refine the potential location, which could also be land the city purchases.
Multimillion dollar cost estimated
The report says whether as a standalone pool or as part of a broader complex, it should include up to three tanks: a 25-metre pool with six to 10 lanes with diving boards, a leisure pool that could include splash features, and a warmer therapeutic pool.
The report suggests a regional recreation centre could be in the range of 65,000 to 100,000 square feet.
It places the potential cost for facilities of that scale between $20 million to $62 million, based on estimates from other proposed facilities in Canada.
“It should be noted that the cost range remains speculative until such time as a more involved consideration of final design elements of a pool complex (either as a standalone building or part of a larger multi-use complex) is performed,” the report states.
Cohoon said the city would likely try to get funding from other levels of government and other funding sources if the plans move ahead.
“We know pools are costly,” Cohoon said. “We know they don’t make money. But certainly, we want to look at what is the best use of our public dollars to satisfy the needs and values of our citizens.”
The consultants held several public meetings to gather input and an online survey had nearly 1,800 responses. Of those responding, 57 per cent lived in the city’s north end. The report says there was support for a new aquatics centre.
The survey noted most aquatics centres operate with a deficit and are subsidized by municipalities. Of those people surveyed, 49 per cent said they wouldn’t want to pay higher taxes to cover a deficit.
Only one councillor voted against the recommendation for staff to explore next steps.
Coun. Paul Richard said he was disappointed the report leaned toward an outdoor pool in the north end instead of the Parkton-area between Mountain Road and Wheeler Boulevard that he represents with lower income residents.
“There are kids there that don’t have, won’t have, the opportunity to go places [like] Centennial Park,” Richard said in an interview. “That’s not that far, but they might never go.”
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