NPA park board platform includes promises to maintain parks, fund new pools

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      As part of its park board platform, the NPA is vowing to “restore relationships” with community centre associations across the city and double the number of outdoor swimming pools.

      Mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe said today (October 28) that if elected, the NPA also intends to pass legislation to permanently protect the city’s parks and green spaces, and to create “defined service levels” for maintaining parks and gardens.

      LaPointe contended that under Vision Vancouver, “the grass isn’t getting cut, our playing fields are falling apart and our trees are neglected. That’s bad management and we will change that.”

      The NPA noted that the city currently has 33 gardeners for 230 parks.

      The party is also vowing to restore $10.2 million in funding that was allocated for the redevelopment of the Marpole-Oakridge Community Centre in the 2012 to 2014 capital plan.

      According to Vision Vancouver park board commissioner Trevor Loke, the 2015-2018 capital plan includes $17 million for the redevelopment of the community centre.

      He criticized the NPA for committing to building new swimming pools “when they don’t know where the locations are going to be, they don’t know what the costs are going to be.”

      “When it comes to pools, we’ve said very clearly that we want to initiate the replacement of the pool at Britannia, and that’s got a very specific cost associated with it in terms of the $24 million that we’re allocating to the Britannia centre renewal plan,” Loke told the Straight by phone.

      The NPA said today that Vancouver is “dramatically underserved” when it comes to outdoor pools. They are promising to consult with the community on where the new facilities should be located.

      Comments

      3 Comments

      Vancouver Watcher

      Oct 28, 2014 at 5:35pm

      Trevor Loke: Second best example of Peter Principle after Constance Barnes!

      Margery for Outdoor Pools

      Oct 28, 2014 at 10:58pm

      The pool at Britannia is an indoor pool, Trevor Loke.
      In this statement the NPA is committing to the building of three OUTDOOR swimming pools.
      Vision Vancouver, which ran on a platform to replace Mount Pleasant Outdoor Pool in 2008, voted against outdoor swimming pools in the 2012 Capital Plan process, and voted against a motion by John Coupar at the Capital Plan meeting at Park Board on September 30th, 2014. This is the second Capital Plan where Vision has not funded any outdoor pools despite having the highest support in city wide public consultation (respect for public consultation being another Vision failure). Whether Britannia indoor pool is replaced remains to be seen, but the redevelopment of that centre is to occur over 3 Capital Plans, or 12 years, and hopefully we will have long forgotten who Vision is by then.

      jean Campbell

      Oct 29, 2014 at 8:31am

      I would also like to ask Trevor Loke – how come Marpole and Hastings Community Centers were at the top of the Park Board list for renewal, but were suddenly bumped in favour of Britania? What is going on?
      Vision has had plenty of time to include outdoor swimming pools in Community Center Replacement Plans, but they never do. Four out of seven outdoor pools have been closed in the last ten years. Let’s face it – Vision is just anti outdoor swimming pools.