June 27, 2022

Mount Pleasant Park Board Pool Duels: City of Vancouver Says You Never Told Us

In the “You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up” department the City of Vancouver is deciding not to fund the Mount Pleasant outdoor pool even though this pool replacement was a community agreement. I know because I was there.

This budget item is in the City’s Capital Plan being considered this week by in a special council meeting. You can take a look at that report here.

Viewpoint Vancouver has previously written about the fact that a small faction of locals  that  decided that the public pool should not be installed to replace a grassy knoll close to the school. Of course there is also the fact that the replacement  pool will bring other families and kids in that are not in the immediate neighbourhood, a NIMBY (not in my back yard) response.

I lived across from this public pool and I went to the meetings  when the pool was to be demolished, and a new plan put in for replacement. This pool was loved and well used, and had swimming lessons and children that would come from adjoining neighbourhoods for the programs. Parents brought lunches and picnics.

An outdoor pool is part of any city kid’s summer.

There was a supposedly confirmed agreement with the community (who also lost the community centre which used to be located in this park) that the pool would be rebuilt. The pool was decommissioned over a decade ago-but no pool replacement. Just grass for the locals.

That is not what was agreed to.

Imagine.  Here we are in Vancouver, a city that is basically surrounded by water but we have few outdoor pools in which to learn to swim or to spend time at.  As Kenneth Chan writes in the Daily Hive, Montreal has over 70 outdoor pools, and Toronto has 60 outdoor pools. Vancouver?

There are five.

Think of that   Only FIVE OUTDOOR POOLS.  Even though Vancouver has a better climate, and one would argue more reason to train kids to swim because of the access to the ocean and river waters.

The Park Board  replacement pool was estimated firstly at  14.4 million dollars, with a new outdoor pool with a four lane  25 metre lap pool, and a portion with a shallower depth for a “leisure” pool, as well as change rooms and pool equipment rooms. The previous pool was in use from 1969 to 2010.

And here is where nixing the  pool replacement descends into a bureaucrat buzzfest, and provides one more reason for Vancouver’s Park Board to be put out to pasture, and the services amalgamated in city hall.

Even through the Park Board affirmed replacing the pool in 2010 and in 2021,  it’s off the table because “Council had not adopted any resolution to fund a new outdoor pool at Mount Pleasant Park. “

The Park Board played two options against each other, either building a new outdoor pool at Mount Pleasant Park or expanding the outdoor pool at Hillcrest Aquatic Centre. There never should have been an “either” or “or”.  This is just pitting neighbourhoods against neighbourhoods.

City hall produced a “public benefits strategies” approved by Council in 2013 which surprise!  did not include the outdoor replacement pool at Mount Pleasant Park. And that new Broadway Plan bringing tens of thousands of people to the Broadway corridor? Nope, that plan did not mention the Mount Pleasant outdoor pool either.

Where was the Park Board championing and ensuring this item was in these reports?

There was also no  public engagement on the Mount Pleasant pool replacement in the  City’s “Talk Vancouver” survey work done from April 28 to May 22 or on the Leger survey. Not one question on the Mount Pleasant pool, what it meant to this underserved area. None.

But the City says “opinion is split”.  Despite the longstanding agreement with the community to rebuild.

If you have not asked the survey question to the community  how do you  quantify that?  And where did that opinion come from, the local adjoining neighbours?

How could the Park Board not let the City know of this longstanding agreement to rebuild the Mount Pleasant pool? Or was this a convenient way for the City to sweep this community agreement under the bureaucratic carpet?

Regardless, this is not about pitting neighbour against neighbour, and locals have worked very hard to have their outdoor pool in Hillcrest  (there’s an indoor there too) upgraded. But  it would appear that a  community with no outdoor pool access close to Broadway, in a community with few recreational opportunities and a high rental community misses out.

Let’s leave the last word to the Special Council Committee report:  Construction of a new outdoor pool at Mount Pleasant Park would require removal of the open lawn, which has become a well-used park feature since it was built in 2012, and more so during the pandemic. Decision on converting park space for outdoor pool is within Park Board’s jurisdiction, not Council, as Mount Pleasant Park is designated a ‘permanent park’ under s488 of the Vancouver Charter.”

Council recommends keeping a public lawn.

Just leaving that right here.

 

 

 

 

 

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Comments

  1. What Council should do is build the pool, run it for a few years, then threaten to close it and replace it with a lawn. Then they can gauge the outcry over the loss of the pool against the few old tremblers who opposed its construction in the first place. And then make whatever decision would anger the fewest people, because that seems to be Council’s approach to leadership.

    1. I agree with your post Dan – except the last sentence. I just attended the Parks Board meeting and it looks as though there is hope that we will get a neighbourhood pool finally. We need to be able to walk or bike to a neighbourhood pool – rather than drive cars a longer distance – in this time of climate emergency,. For the sake of our kids – we need a neighbourhood pool. Hillcrest is the opposite a “drive-to” destination facility with a huge parking lot. A neighbourhood pool could be a lifesaver in these hotter summers.

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