{"id":17187,"date":"2017-05-03T15:40:16","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T19:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=17187"},"modified":"2017-05-03T15:40:16","modified_gmt":"2017-05-03T19:40:16","slug":"new-recreation-centre-accelerated-at-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/new-recreation-centre-accelerated-at-council\/","title":{"rendered":"New recreation centre accelerated at Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

A new sports and recreation facility has long been a part of Aurora\u2019s 10 year capital plan, but could become a reality sooner rather than later following a Council decision last week.
\nStakeholder talks with local sports clubs and other users on a new multiuse recreation centre began last week after Council unanimously approved a motion from Councillor Harold Kim which could see the dollars for the design and construction in place for the 2018 Budget.
\nIn his motion, Councillor Kim said it was important for Aurora to be prepared and have resources in place to account for expected population growth rather than wait until population growth is in place and current facilities become stretched to the limit.
\n\u201cWe want to be ahead of the curve and make sure services are in place when the need is there, not just when we need it now, otherwise it is too late,\u201d said Councillor Kim, noting he is already seeing aquatics at capacity when he uses facilities with his family. \u201cGiven that we have a hotel that is going to be built shortly and all the other things that are going to be happening in the next four to five years, I think it would be a good time to light a match under this, move this forward, have staff come back with a report in terms of the location, even a draft design and a budget commitment for the 2018 budget year.\u201d
\nIf it is not in place by the 2018 budget, he said it would get bumped into another year and, in between, there will be a municipal election. Bringing a report to the Town\u2019s Financial Advisory Committee for review and back to Councillors at the Committee level would be the next logical step, he added.
\nThe motion comes on the heels of a recent delegation to Council by Sport Aurora\u2019s Reg Chappell, which led to Council tasking staff with looking into a multipurpose sports facility. It also reaffirms Council\u2019s position on the matter, but gives staff a firm \u2013 albeit accelerated \u2013 timeframe in which to work.
\nMr. Downey cautioned, however, that the acceleration makes a \u201ctight\u201d timeframe for turnaround on the report but it is ultimately doable.
\nAs it stands, the Capital Plan earmarked $15,250,000 over the next three years to make a new facility a reality, with $2.4 million pencilled in for 2018, $12 million in 2019, and $850,000 in 2020. But, Mr. Downey noted that likely not enough money to build a facility and other resources \u2013 including private partnerships \u2013 will need to be explored.
\nFor Council, these partnerships are integral, not only in completing the project from a financial perspective, but ensuring it meets all community needs.
\n\u201cI believe it is important that we work with our partners and working with our seniors and Sport Aurora is invaluable in providing what they see as what we need,\u201d said Councillor John Abel. \u201cIt is so important that when we plan that we don\u2019t do something we shouldn\u2019t and waste resources otherwise. I applaud Councillor Kim for bringing this forward. I also think it is important we put something in a plan so that when this term ends we have an approved plan with community buy-in and that is important when we take on the scope of a multipurpose sport facility.\u201d
\nCouncil unanimously approved the motion, but some Council members voiced a note of caution.
\n\u201cIt will be a problem on how best to fund this for our community,\u201d said Councillor Wendy Gaertner. \u201cIt is going to be a difficult exercise to put all of the puzzle pieces together and hopefully support all of our various sports groups, so I am looking forward to seeing that report.\u201d
\nAdded Councillor Jeff Thom: \u201cI am in favour of moving forward. From my perspective, if it takes a little bit longer than the 2018 budget deliberations, I would rather take the time to do the consultation correctly and do everything we need to do because this is a $20 million facility we\u2019re talking about. Everyone is in favour of doing it right the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir A new sports and recreation facility has long been a part of Aurora\u2019s 10 year capital plan, but could become a reality sooner rather than later following a Council decision last week. Stakeholder talks with local sports clubs and other users on a new multiuse recreation centre began last week after Council […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4td","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-24 16:36:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}