Outdoor swimming pools were put on the fast-track Monday night in a Vancouver Park Board decision powered by nostalgia and the campaign promises of all but one commissioner.
Commissioners elected to “quick-start” the process of identifying money to take from other park board projects for the creation of an unspecified number of outdoor pools at unnamed locations. Happening fast and with few concrete details, the decision is strongly supported by NPA and Green Party commissioners who say they are trying to deliver what the community has asked for over the past decade.
Fifteen years since the Mount Pleasant pool was first slated for closure, the swimming hole that closed in 2009 could return. The park board directed staff to see what is possible and how it could be paid for. Staff will return with their report within two months.
“The community of Vancouver has been waiting a long time,” said NPA commissioner John Coupar, who brought the motion forward in fulfillment of a campaign promise.
To explore cheaper options, he floated ideas such as “natural pools” and solar heating.
Coupar was challenged by Vision commissioner Catherine Evans, who said a hot, humid city like Toronto does not have the same needs as Vancouver and does not offer a reasonable comparison. (That city has 57 pools for a population of nearly two million.) Moreover, Evans distrusted the partisan motivation behind the motion and tried to slow the process and tie it to the upcoming broad-ranging, city-wide aquatic review.
Calling the enticement and expedition of standalone, outdoor pools a “very expensive political bauble,” Evans argued for a slower pace free from grassroots lobby groups and upheld the consistent Vision argument that indoor and outdoor pools be part of the same facilities.
“I appreciate there is a strong lobby and they do mean the very best for citizens of Vancouver,” she said, citing staff reports in 2001 and 2011 that recommended indoor and outdoor pools be built together at shared facilities.
“If we had unlimited amounts of money, it would be fantastic to have a pool in every neighbourhood.”
On Monday, former park board chairperson and Vision commissioner Aaron Jasper called the Courier to express the same views. He said the park board of his day grappled with the same decisions and ultimately closed the Mount Pleasant pool.
“We agonized over the same things,” said Jasper. “How do we provide those opportunities but do it in a way that is fiscally responsible? The day of the standalone neighbourhood pool can’t be justified form a financial perspective.”
Chairwoman Sarah Kirby-Yung clarified that the board will vote again on the issue to approve the reallocation of funds once staff returns with options and recommendations.
Green Party commissioner Stuart Mackinnon said the elected members of the board have the mandate to redirect money.
“We all know plans often change, priorities change,” he said. “What we choose is up to the board. We do have a limited amount, but it is up to the elected officials to decide what that is about.”
He said the NPA and Green commissioners, which comprise the seven-person board outside of Evans, were elected in part because of their commitment to explore the options and attempt to open more outdoor pools.
“This was something promised by many candidates in the election,” he said. “Six out of seven here promised to build pools because this is what we heard citizens of Vancouver asking us what to do. This fulfills a little part of my promise.”
Public acts of urbanism
Downtown Vancouver is getting a new park for the first time in 13 years and, holy Khaleesi, it looks like a work of art.
At the corner of Smithe and Richards streets, the 0.8 acre park will be the first one in the urban centre since Emery Barnes Park opened in 2003.
Designed by Vancouver firm Dialog, the park will have a food kiosk, over-head walkway — possibly swings — and suspended lighting as well as a central, flat water feature that can also serve as a stage or more generally as a social space — and, as landscape architect Matthew Thomson also imagined, a place for table tennis tournaments.
The park is expected to open late 2018 and will cost $6 million.
@MHStewart
