City looks at rebuilding Crystal Pool on same site
There could be no pool for up to 2 years; sites outside Central Park being considered
Victoria will investigate building a new Crystal Pool on the existing pool site — a move that would mean closing the existing facility during two years of construction — or even building outside Central Park.
The move comes in the face of pushback from North Park residents, who feel not enough consideration has been given to Central Park, where the pool sits, during the pool-replacement process.
Even though the design of the $69.4-million new pool facility is essentially complete, Mayor Lisa Helps said she doesn’t view the latest move as backtracking. Instead, she said the city is exploring options with the neighbourhood to ensure the city has “a social licence” to build a new pool in the neighbourhood. “I don’t want to do another large infrastructure project that the community is not excited about and doesn’t have enthusiasm for,” she said.
Councillors last month decided there should be no net loss of green space with the new facility, but that would have the effect of limiting pool parking and pushing more cars onto neighbouring streets.
Helps said that in hindsight, it would have been a good idea to have done pool and park public engagement at the same time. “One of the things I’ve heard from the neighbourhood is that we should have thought of ourselves a little bit more like a developer,” Helps said. “We always ask developers when they come to a public hearing: ‘Did you go door to door and talk to neighbours?’ We didn’t do that because, again, we were focused on the swimming pool and not the whole project.”
Coun. Ben Isitt pushed for more analysis of potential sites outside the park, saying he believes the best site for the replacement pool is on city-owned land adjacent to the Victoria Curling Club. “I think we should be in negotiations with the operator of that land to determine what kind of arrangement can be reached. Then that would allow for restoration of Central Park in its entirety as a park.”
Helps, with Coun. Jeremy Loveday, brought forward a number of recommendations she said were crafted with input from people from the neighbourhood.
Councillors directed staff to report back within two months with an analysis comparing the costs and benefits of locating a new pool beside the existing facility, on the existing pool site, on the parking lot beside the curling club or on the Royal Athletic Park parking lot.
Councillors also directed staff to work with the community to develop a consultation process for Central Park, looking at topics ranging from measures to mitigate impacts of pool construction on pool users to plans for the future of the park and parking.
They also asked staff to report back on the feasibility of including the cost of underground parking, park improvement or communitycentre-like amenities as part of a funding application to senior governments.
Loveday, council liaison to North Park, said the measures “will go a long way to regain trust with some of the North Park neighbours and some of the people who will be most impacted by this project when it gets built.”
Helps said the requested work should have no impact on meeting deadlines for senior government funding. The city hopes to receive grants from the federal and provincial governments.