the broken typewriter

As the city grows, so does the number of people in sports. Current facilities are not meeting that need, Council heard

Now that Fort St. John has taken over the North Peace Leisure Pool replacement project, City Council needs more information from key user groups about their priorities for the new facility to keep their activities going and growing in the community, before the newly formed New Aquatics Facility Working Group can decide on the full scope of the project.

At the December 8 Committee of the Whole meeting, Council heard from the Inconnu Swim Club, the Fort St. John Soccer Club, and the North Peace Gymnastics Association.

The clubs which presented to Council said that they need more room; room to accommodate current members, room to host competitions, room to train properly, room for families to watch their athletes and room to grow.

All of the groups have waiting lists of players and members who want to join but can’t because of the limited space. The Inconnu Swim Club for example, training in the existing 6-lane pool, has 115 swimmers. If the new facility has 10 lanes, the club will be able to accommodate 256 swimmers. A 10-lane pool, said Inconnu president Justin Mckinnon, will be good until at least 2040, but an 8-lane facility will be full right away.

McKinnon broke down the costs of an 8-lane pool versus a 10-lane pool and pointed out that there is no cost difference in operation. Both would require two lifeguards, for example.

Having more and wider lanes would allow Inconnu to host more programs, which would provide additional revenue to the pool, aiding in the city’s cost-recovery goals. The additional revenue from Inconnu in a 10-lane pool over an 8-lane pool is projected to be $84,651, according to McKinnon.

“This is not just a City of Fort St. John pool, everyone’s going to use this pool, this entire facility. So, I think we need to keep that in mind, modelling on what we’ve got, we’re not just 22,000 people, we’re 40,000 people.”

The Fort St. John Soccer Club, which is using the Kids Arena Field House, as well as four of the FSJ Curling Club’s sheets of ice for Futsal, says the suboptimal spaces they’re currently using doesn’t encourage the development of players. The space in the Kids Arena doesn’t match Canadian Soccer standards, which creates challenges for players when they go away to tournaments because of the size differences. It also makes it difficult to host tournaments in Fort St. John.

Having a dedicated space for soccer in a multi-use facility would enhance soccer in Fort St. John, Samantha Loeppky, FSJ Soccer’s technical director told Council. It would bring pride, a sense of identity and eliminate the need for multiple different types of soccer boots for the varied surfaces members are currently playing on.

“A full, well-designed indoor facility is not a luxury, it is an essential piece of community infrastructure that supports physical health, mental well-being, youth development and community pride,” Loeppky said.

The club is more than willing to collaborate with the city on the facility, Loeppky said. “Together we can build a home for Fort St. John soccer.”

Having a space for the soccer club in the new facility, would not only free up the ice sheets in the Curling Club so that they could have more players, but it would also enable the North Peace Gymnastics Association to find a new, permanent home that fits their needs, by moving into the Kids Arena Fieldhouse, NPGA executive director Chantelle Yates told Council.

Like the other groups, NPGA is bursting at the seams in their current facility, and they too need room to grow. During Covid, NPGA’s numbers dropped to 633 members, but since then have risen to the current 836 full/annual members. This doesn’t include drop-in users, school field trips, birthday parties and rentals or one-time events.

In the Kids Arena space, Yates says NPGA would be able to separate the program space, such as preschool and recreation programs from the competitive athletes, and improve the ability to hire the certified staff they need to grow.

NPGA’s utopia would be “enough space for all programs, a space to grow and the ability to turn our full attention to our participants and athletes,” Yates said.

They’re looking for enough space to continue to grow, with a space large enough to host competitions, and somewhere to store large equipment, as well as a viewing area for families at all times.

These presentations came out of the public engagement the Peace River Regional District conducted when it was the body behind the pool replacement project. Another thing the PRRD heard during these consultations was that people wanted gymnasium space and indoor social spaces.

Following the presentations, Kylah Bryde, Fort St. John’s director of community services provided additional information about these needs to Council.

Fortunately, the North Peace Leisure Pool building itself is in good condition and is about to get a new roof. This could provide a location for any additional facilities, such as a gymnasium and social space that the community wants.

From the engagement, Bryde said they heard the community wants gym space for informal use, drop-in and programming. But what this means, Bryde says they don’t know.

“So, we need to go back to the public and clarify that. Because we have quite a few gyms in town, we need to exhaust all our efforts to figure out the space of our current gyms, figure out if there’s a shared use agreement, a way we can work with the school district before I can positively say that we need to put a gymnasium in the new facility,” Bryde said. “We’re just not quite there yet.”

The current NPLP, Bryde said, is in an excellent location and although owned by the PRRD, it’s part of the city’s recreation campus.

“It’s a prime location, we love it there, we more than likely want anything to go in there that aligns with recreation, wellness, families. It’s just that small hurdle, it’s not owned by us,” she said.

“We fully intend, if we could have a look at it, to put it to very good use.”

While there were no direct questions to Council from staff on how to proceed, Bryde said they wanted to get all the moving pieces in front of Council and prepare to have a “scope in front of Council in January, and for you to be able to decide what our official scope is, and then we would take it on and do all the rest that we have to do before June.”

In the new year, the City will bring forward prices and designs, geared towards an October 2026 referendum – likely during the municipal elections – in which residents will be able to vote for their choice, Councillor Trevor Bolin said later on December 8 at the Official Community Plan Public Hearing, in response to questions from the public.