The aquatic centre in Summerland is almost 50 years old and is in dire need of repair or replacement.
“We’ve had incidents recently where we had to put umbrellas up in the facility when it rained, ” said pool user Anne Carter. “So it’s not fun for the staff, it’s demoralizing for the staff.”
The district held a referendum in November asking to borrow $50 million to move forward with the project, but 58 per cent of voters said no.
And on Tuesday, the district learned that the $25-million federal grant request it made for a new facility was denied.
“When I read the email … I was extremely disappointed. I was disappointed for our entire town,” said Summerland deputy mayor Erin Trainer.
“That grant would have meant so much to us.”
With the grant money denied, council will now have to decide how much money to invest in repairing the facility, which could be very costly.
“About $28 million to do a full renovation to our current rec center but that number could change, ” Trainer said. “As we start to do more renovations, we’re finding more problems.”
Trainer said it’s been a frustrating process waiting to hear about the grant money, especially because the request was made in February 2023.
“That was very frustrating. So when we went to referendum back in November, we absolutely thought we would have heard back,” Trainer said.
“This took a year for them to say no and so that’s really frustrating when we’re trying to budget and we’re trying to determine, you know, how we’re going to spend money.”
Trainer added that had a grant been approved prior to the referendum, the outcome would have likely been a lot different.
“If we’d gotten that grant before the referendum, I think that the voters would have been supportive of it because they would have known we had support from other levels of government,” Trainer said. “We need that support. We can’t expect our taxpayers to foot these massive bills for infrastructure.”
Trainer also said that had the grant money come through now, even months after the failed referendum, she believes the project could have been resurrected.
“We would have had to borrow quite a bit less,” Trainer said. “We probably would have taken it to a new referendum for that lower price and went out and asked our voters again.”
Pool users expressed disappointment the community will not get a new facility in the foreseeable future.
‘I voted yes in the referendum in the hopes it would go through, ” said Summerland resident Warren Harrison.
“I guess we just carry on and hope we get things fixed up,” said another local resident named Jackie Martin.
But how much the district is willing to spend on the repairs and the extent remains to be seen.
“This is happening across the country because all of the infrastructure that was built post-war in the ’60s and ’70s is now reaching its end of life and we’re all scrambling to figure out how we’re going to pay for this,” Trainer said.