{"id":25747,"date":"2020-01-23T18:45:38","date_gmt":"2020-01-23T23:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25747"},"modified":"2020-01-23T18:45:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-23T23:45:47","slug":"aurora-will-need-to-look-outside-the-box-to-address-field-needs-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-will-need-to-look-outside-the-box-to-address-field-needs-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora will need to look outside the box to address field needs: study"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aurora will need to deploy some out-of-the-box thinking\nand explore new partnerships to meet the sports field requirements of a growing\ncommunity, according to a new study presented at Council last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Tuesday, Council received recommendations stemming\nfrom the Town\u2019s Outdoor Field Development Strategy, a plan in the works since\n2018 to look at how local current sports fields in the community \u2013 particularly\nsoccer pitches and baseball diamonds \u2013 were being used today and what will be\nrequired to meet the needs of a growing community tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conclusion: there are some significant challenges\nahead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presented at the Committee level, the study finds that\nalmost half of the Town\u2019s existing sports fields are on parcels of land not\nowned by the Town and an estimated 32 additional acres of parkland will be\nrequired to meet the future needs of existing sports groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese needs cannot be met strictly by traditional means\nsuch as the land development process as greenfield land supplies are dwindling\nand additional community parks are not anticipated,\u201d said John Firman of the\nTown of Aurora, in his report to Council. \u201cAs a result, sport field development\nmust focus on improving what we have, optimizing our sites, acquiring land, and\nworking in partnership with owners of other large sites.\u201d
\nIn developing strategies for the Town to meet demand, the study looked at a\nnumber of areas, including: adding capacity; addressing high priority needs;\nleveraging community partnerships; reducing conflicts and\/or creating\nmulti-field complexes; replacing facilities that are underused or in poor\ncondition; compatibility with surrounding uses; and having a reasonable chance\nto be implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the recommendations presented are converting and\nreconfiguring existing fields to better meet demand, adding lights to extend\nplaying opportunities, permit more fields in existing parks, partner with\nschool boards for the permitting of existing fields and developing of new ones;\nand collaborate with surrounding communities on new opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[Existing] sports fields are at or approaching\ncapacity,\u201d said consultant Stephen Langlois, presenting his findings to last\nweek\u2019s General Committee meeting. \u201cYour population is growing as well, so we\nneed to look ahead. Land is not easy to come by in your municipality. The Town\nrecently made a number of changes to help keep pace with some of these demands,\nbut we know that sport field demands continue to rise, changes are happening in\nterms of trends and participation [so] the look-ahead is very important so that\nwe right-size the supply to what the needs are within your sport community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have many new community parks coming your way.\nThose have been the mainstay of sports field development in your community and\nothers, so we have to get a bit more creative. We [need to] look at optimizing\nfield supply and ultimately working with non-municipal organizations, many of\nwhich might have land to meet those needs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, the Town offers 60 rectangular fields,\nsuitable for a number of uses, particularly soccer. Half of these are not owned\nby the municipality and 19 are on Magna-owned lands slated for future\ndevelopment. 20 additional rectangular fields \u2013 13 resulting from the loss of\nMagna fields \u2013 are required to meet demand by 2031. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for baseball diamonds, the Town has access to 18\nfields right now and there is a current deficit of two. By 2031, the Town will\nneed five additional diamonds and if these are all built on new land, 12\nhectares would be required to make it happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt a high level, there are four things we can do: we can\nimprove and repurpose what you have, we can develop new or permit fields that\nare not currently permitted within your parks, we can expand partnerships with\nnon-municipal landowners and we can modify operational practices and policy\ncoordination,\u201d said Mr. Langlois. \u201cWe looked at opportunities to expand or\nreconfigure a park. We looked at field improvements, opportunities to install\nartificial turf to enhance capacity. Norm Weller Park is one example there. You\nhave some new neighbourhood parks coming on stream, and there is an opportunity\nfor some new smaller fields in those, as well as most notably expanding\npartnerships. That\u2019s probably your most viable solution to addressing the loss\nof the Magna fields \u2013 to redeploy your resources and scheduling to go out to\nparticularly the public school board lands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the school-based options, significant opportunities\nmight lie on lands currently home to Dr. G.W. Williams Secondary School. As the\nYork Region District School Board plans to move the high school, presently\nlocated on Dunning Avenue, to a yet-to-be-constructed new building on Bayview\nAvenue at Borealis, in the first half of this decade, the lands on Dunning\ncould provide several hectares ripe for partnership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Langlois recognized that the Town would not be able\nto achieve all that is required within the plan, but what was before them was a\ngood \u201cstarting point\u201d in the right direction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Receiving the presentation, Council had a number of\nquestions for both the consultant and Robin McDougall, Director of Community\nServices, for the Town of Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Wendy Gaertner, for instance, questioned the\nwisdom of earmarking lands currently designated as floodplain for rectangular\nfields. While Mayor Tom Mrakas and Councillor John Gallo both called for a\nfurther breakdown on usage rates noted in the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study relied on data from various sports groups on\nhow they used existing fields, but the Mayor and Councillor said more details\non the numbers of users who actually reside within Aurora would be a more\naccurate way to determine what is required for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe report confirms what we have all known, which is as\nwe grow we need to become creative in how we provide new or enhance our\nexisting fields and sports facilities,\u201d said Mayor Mrakas. \u201cThrough\nrepurposing, through working with the school boards, as we heard, maybe\npossibly working with partners\u2026 from private partnerships, these are the things\nwe\u2019re going to need to do to order to provide value for our residents and for\nthe tax dollars that we spend to develop as we grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am looking forward to the upcoming reports from staff\nthat are going to develop from these recommendations and I am sure that staff\nwill bring enhanced reports and work with what they have through these\nrecommendations and provide maybe some better numbers. I agree with Councillor\nGallo that some of the numbers I do have some issues with them and I don\u2019t\nagree with some of them, but I think staff have heard us and they will work with\nthat and provide us with maybe some better, stronger numbers as they provide\ntheir reports with these recommendations coming forward and how we look at\nrepurposing\u2026 and providing that value for residents and our sports\ncommunities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Councillor Michael Thompson\u2019s perspective, since\nbeing first elected to Council in 2010, he has heard many times that adding\ncapacity and land will require leveraging community partnerships. The\nconversation, he said, \u201cisn\u2019t new\u201d so he welcomed the report\u2019s examination of\nhow existing fields could be repurposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think there are still more questions that come out of the report for us to look into, as Councillor Gallo and others have indicated, but at least it gives us a good starting point,\u201d said Councillor Thompson. \u201cWe have been looking towards more specifics and some more thoughts about how best to proceed, and I think this gives us a good foundation on which to build upon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora will need to deploy some out-of-the-box thinking and explore new partnerships to meet the sports field requirements of a growing community, according to a new study presented at Council last week. Last Tuesday, Council received recommendations stemming from the Town\u2019s Outdoor Field Development Strategy, a plan in the works since 2018 to look at […]<\/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-25747","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\/p3D2k4-6Hh","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 22:55:43","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\/25747","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=25747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}