Rec centre announcement on hold

Halifax Mainland Common project ready to go but frustration mounts as feds drag heels

By AMY PUGSLEY FRASER City Hall Reporter

A $40.7-million recreation centre is in the works for Halifax’s Mainland Common.

The site has been cleared, the plans are drawn up and the funding appears to be in place. It’s just that no one can announce it yet.

Last week, the city unveiled its brand new "community facility master plan." The 159-page book contains a tiny line item for the recreation centre under the "Capital program summary," outlining an outlay of $40.7 million.

Even faced with such proof that the centre exists, regional councillors are still keeping mum.

"I would love to go to the community and say, ‘Here’s the project we’re building for you,’ but I can’t say much about it," said Coun. Russell Walker (Fairview-Clayton Park).

The funding for the state-of-the-art centre is virtually equally divided among the city ($12 million), the province and the feds ($13.34 million apiece).

But the announcement of the rec centre, expected as long ago as last year, is still on hold, pending a nod from the federal government. And it doesn’t even appear to be on Ottawa’s radar.

On Tuesday, the news from the office of Peter MacKay, the minister responsible for ACOA, was that there’s "no news."

"At this time, we don’t have an announcement to provide to you, nor is there a date for any announcement," Jay Paxton, Mr. MacKay’s press secretary, said from Ottawa.

It’s not just the delay that has tongues wagging in Halifax.

The public process surrounding the design of the centre has prompted people to write blogs on the Internet and organize letter-writing campaigns to local newspapers. It also spurred Liberal MLA Diana Whalen to draft a private member’s bill.

In the last week of the legislature’s spring sitting, Ms. Whalen unsuccessfully introduced a bill calling for a mandatory public process in projects with provincial funding of over $250,000. The impetus, she said, was the process surrounding the Mainland Common Recreation Centre.

"The public demands and deserves no less than full accountability when their money is being spent," she wrote in a March op-ed piece in The Chronicle Herald.

"Recreation facilities are desperately needed in Nova Scotia, and the old-time attitude of ‘We know what’s best for you’ coming from the two levels of government is not appropriate or acceptable in 2008."

Susan Kirkland agrees. The president of Build it Right, a residents group fighting for a recreation centre that people want, said the ground has been cleared on the Mainland Common but the community still hasn’t been told what will be built there. The last big public meeting was almost three years ago, she said.

"It’s just not right that the community doesn’t know what’s going on in their own neighbourhood, with tax dollars that they pay for," Ms. Kirkland said.

"And you can be sure that the community is going to be asked to fundraise as well as pay taxes for what is going on."

Mr. Walker said public input was invited, and acted upon, during the design process.

"We had meetings with all the stakeholders to get their input on what they wanted in a facility," he said.

He acknowledged there’s been no public meeting recently but he said open houses that were held were sufficient in terms of planning.

"The big thing was that when we won the 2011 Canada Winter Games, the vision of what we needed to build for those Games was built into this facility," Mr. Walker said.

As a result, the rec centre has grown in scope from $8 million to $11 million to $24 million to $40 million, he said. And it’s clear that nothing will be built without federal money, he said.

A public meeting to announce plans for the new rec centre will be held soon, Mr. Walker promised — "as soon as this federal money is announced."

He said he has seen the plans and the finished rec centre will be "wonderful."

"I would be surprised if any community in Nova Scotia would turn down this rec centre. That’s how nice it is," Mr. Walker said.

The Sackville Sports Stadium, built in 1990, is the last full-service recreation centre built in metro Halifax. It includes hockey and curling rinks, two pools, a fitness centre, a daycare and activity rooms.

Two years earlier, Cole Harbour Place went up, with two arenas and pools, squash courts, fitness and community rooms, a library and a canteen.

( apugsley@herald.ca)