STAY CONNECTED TO VIBRANTVICTORIA
WHAT'S HAPPENING ON CITIFIED VICTORIA
Here is the best part:
With council giving the groups a nod of approval, they'll now start talking to James Bay residents about what a project involving the three organizations could look like and whether it could also add to the communities' population by including housing.
Is it going to happen quickly? Not likely.
Coleman is the first to recognize nothing happens fast in Victoria. It took almost seven years to replace the wading pool in Beacon Hill Park.
He's seeing it as a five- to 10-year project.
Councillors take a nervous look at recreation plans
Carolyn Heiman, Times Colonist
Published: Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Back at the dawn of time -- well actually 2004 -- the city of Victoria launched a dynamite plan to spiff up aging recreation facilities including the cash-sucking, dilapidated Crystal Pool.
Called recreation renewal, the logic was that it made more sense to build several larger facilities to replace the Crystal Pool, Royal Athletic Park and seven community and senior centres in Fairfield, Fernwood, James Bay, downtown and Vic West.
The $32-million plan triggered an explosion of outrage in almost all communities worried about losing meeting space, although many of the facilities in question are old and have narrow uses.
The focus remained on what would be lost, over what might be gained. Victoria city councillor Chris Coleman, liaison for the parks department at the time, says he can still feel the scars on his back from the episode.
A beleaguered council hastily retreated from the plan in less than a year of it being unveiled, and the words "recreation renewal" were never spoken again.
In the meantime, Victorians watched as neighbouring communities went full-steam ahead on improving facilities. Oak Bay renovated its recreation centre and built a new pavilion. Langford built an arena.
In Victoria, more study took place. This one is quietly referred to as the son-of-recreation-renewal but is actually called the Recreation and Community Services Delivery Systems Review. Leaving no stone unturned, it brought 30 organizations together to see how the city might move forward with its facilities. It came up with a mushy vision, values and beliefs concept, but has stalled again, this time because the top staff in the parks department were shuffled out the door and no one was left to finish the work. With a new parks director steering the ship, a report is to come to council in the fall on the next steps. Facilities deemed too old in 2004, are older.
In the meantime, perhaps getting impatient while they grow out of their existing facilities, three James Bay organizations are gingerly stepping forward with a grand plan to integrate many of their services. The James Bay Health and Community Services Society and James Bay New Horizons Society and James Bay Community School Society want to end service duplications -- such as three teensy, inadequate kitchens -- and expand other parts of their operations. The society, for example, would like to have bigger health services area for more doctors offices.
A vision of how this might work was unveiled at a recent meeting of Victoria city council, and assuming it doesn't implode on the weight of its complexities, could be a model for other communities still treasuring fiefdoms.
The staff and boards of the above organizations have approved a concept that would see the older facilities replaced with a super structure and surplus properties -- most likely the James Bay Community Project building at 547 Michigan -- used for family housing. Seniors housing could be built at 234 Menzies where New Horizons operated. Depending on how elaborate the plan gets, some see public/private partnerships that include redevelopment of existing commercial buildings and land swaps with the provincial government for a parking lot on Menzies Street where some see a new community building.
With council giving the groups a nod of approval, they'll now start talking to James Bay residents about what a project involving the three organizations could look like and whether it could also add to the communities' population by including housing.
Is it going to happen quickly? Not likely.
Coleman is the first to recognize nothing happens fast in Victoria. It took almost seven years to replace the wading pool in Beacon Hill Park.
He's seeing it as a five- to 10-year project.
Let's mark it on the calendar and hope it happens.
