District of Summerland to consider options after aquatic centre referendum

The community of Summerland, B.C., will have to continue to rely on a nearly 50-year-old pool facility after a failed referendum to borrow $50 million for a new one.

“There’s not too many public swimming pools in the province that old,”  said Summerland Mayor Doug Holmes.

Saturday’s referendum resulted in 2,682 residents voting no and 1,943 saying yes to the district borrowing the money for the project.

“The people have spoken,” Holmes said on Monday. “The message is pretty clear that we won’t be borrowing $50 million.”

While disappointed with the outcome, local resident Nathan Ward, a father of a young child, wasn’t overly surprised with the end result.

“It’s obviously tough times borrowing money in any instance right now, but I don’t think construction costs are going to get any cheaper,” ward told Global News.

This weekend’s failed referendum means that council will have to consider its options and shelve the project for now.

“We don’t really want to leave the community without a pool, so you know, council will look at next steps,” Holmes said. “Maybe there’s government grants out there, is there a way we can reduce that amount? You know, that’s still a possibility. There’s these things out there.”

The new aquatic centre was going to be built on an existing parking lot next to the Summerland arena and would have been more than twice the size of the current pool facility.

For an average property. Holmes said it would have been an additional $550 a year in property taxes.

While many residents agreed a new facility is badly needed, they said it was too much for a small community to bear.

“It’s a lot of money at a tight time,” said Summerland resident Linda McIntosh. ” I think a lot of people are questioning how and where they want to spend their money so maybe the timing wasn’t right.”

“Maybe look out for builders or developers that could help fund it, which they do in other municipalities. You get a land swap and they help put in a community centre or rec centre,” said Elizabeth Kriston, another Summerland resident.

“It would be great to have the facility here in town but unfortunately we don’t have that provincial or federal support,” said John Patteron, who also lives in Summerland.

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The district’s mayor said  he’s disappointed that a $25-million federal grant application submitted back in February has not come through.

“We were hoping that we would have heard before the referendum date, you know, one way or the other,” Holmes said. “And that would have helped people’s decision. That uncertainty didn’t help matters.”

When asked why council didn’t wait for a grant to come through first before going to a referendum, Holmes said it had everything to do with rising costs.

“That entered our decision about going to referendum when we did rather than wait to see if we could get a government grant or not because the longer the wait, the more expensive it’s going to get,” Holmes said.

The existing pool was built in 1976 and has undergone numerous upgrades and renovations over the years and is nearing the end of its life.

“We keep it together … with our band-aids and we’ll keep keeping it together for as long as possible.” Holmes said.

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