{"id":25884,"date":"2020-02-07T12:41:12","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T17:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25884"},"modified":"2020-02-07T12:41:22","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T17:41:22","slug":"addressing-field-shortage-requires-made-in-aurora-solution-council-advocates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/addressing-field-shortage-requires-made-in-aurora-solution-council-advocates\/","title":{"rendered":"Addressing field shortage requires Made In Aurora solution: Council, Advocates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Providing enough sports fields to meet the demands of a\ngrowing community has been a perennial issue for the Town of Aurora, but more\nwork is needed to determine just how big the shortfall actually is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the sentiment coming out of last week\u2019s Council\nmeeting where Council members and local sports advocates discussed the findings\nof the Town\u2019s draft Outdoor Sports Field Development Strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As The Auroran reported last month, the draft strategy,\nas presented to Council on January 14, found that 32 additional acres of\nparkland will be required to meet the future needs of existing Aurora sports\ngroups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In developing strategies for the Town to meet demand, the\nstudy looked at a number of areas, including: adding capacity; addressing high\npriority needs; leveraging community partnerships; reducing conflicts and\/or\ncreating multi-field complexes; replacing facilities that are underused or in\npoor condition; compatibility with surrounding uses; and having a reasonable\nchance to 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

But some advocates believe further work needs to be done\nto crunch the numbers so they are better reflective of the number of\nAurora-based players using the fields versus out-of-town members of\nAurora-based clubs hitting local soccer pitches and baseball diamonds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking as a delegate to Council last week, Javed Khan,\nDirector of Community Relations for Sport Aurora, an umbrella group\nrepresenting dozens of local sports groups, said he agreed with views expressed\nby Councillor John Gallo in January that numbers used in the study \u201crequire\nverification\u201d before moving forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike [Councillor Gallo], we believe that self-reported\ndata requires verification by sport governing bodies because any good strategy\nthat has such a financial impact depends on accurate and reliable data\nobjectively gathered,\u201d said Mr. Khan. \u201cWe also think that the data collected\nshould include not only participant numbers, but age, gender, residency and\neven level of play, as they all can be concurrently obtained and have relevance.\u201d
\nTrends in sport outlined in the Outdoor Sports Field Development Strategy\nreflect trends noted by Sport Aurora, he added, but \u201clocal conditions determine\nfuture needs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLikewise, with projections for the future, we believe\nthat asking our sport organizations\u2026their own projected enrollments is\nimportant,\u201d he concluded. \u201cSports are businesses and they know their resources\nand their customers. It would be appropriate to ask them what their business\nplans are for the next two-to-five years. The survey simply asked if they\nanticipate needs, it didn\u2019t ask them the size of those needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe all have a great opportunity to lay down a strong\nfoundation of sport because what matters gets built. This is both a challenge\nand an opportunity to build a quality sport community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These sentiments were echoed by several Council members,\nincluding Councillor Gallo who encouraged a deeper dive into participants and\ndata. Further work also needs to be done, he said, on service levels as they\npertain to rectangular sports fields, like soccer pitches, as well as baseball\ndiamonds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that goes hand in hand with the proper data\ncollection and the analysis that will come from that and filter through service\nlevel and then we determine how many fields we actually need. Subject to\ncontinuing discussions on those two specific items, I am in support of moving\nforward, particularly on the rectangular field side. If we lose Magna (which\ncurrently provides nearly 20 rectangular fields for Town use, all of which are\nexpected to be developed in the next few years) I think it is a big deal and we\nshouldn\u2019t just pause full stop until we get that information. For me, that\ninformation is vital to determine what our needs actually are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Michael Thompson also underscored the potential\nhit the Town will have to address once the Magna fields are no longer\navailable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe embarked on this because we all recognize there\u2019s a\nneed,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have some concerns in the near future. Councillor Gallo\nraised Magna and other places where we need to address those issues. This is an\nattempt for us to be as proactive as possible at this point to try and remedy\nthose issues. However, there are valid concerns being raised about we want to\nmake sure the strategy is correct, that our assumptions are right, but it\nsounds like if we do endorse this strategy in principle, we have time to\naddress those concerns brought up by user groups as well as Councillor Gallo\nand others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSimilar to Councillor Gallo\u2019s comments, I am okay moving\nforward as long as we continue to do our due diligence and look into these\nissues so when the time comes to make those budgetary decisions\u2026that the\ninformation is there to validate those decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Councillor Wendy Gaertner: \u201cWe have to get this\nright. We need to keep working at this. The consultant\u2019s report is not enough.\nIt\u2019s a fantastic start, but it is Aurora and it needs to be a solution that is\nAurora-based and right for Aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a 6 \u2013 0 vote, with Councillor Rachel Gilliland absent from last week\u2019s meeting, Council approved the Sports Field Development Strategy in principle, subject to Council\u2019s approval of subsequent budgetary implications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Providing enough sports fields to meet the demands of a growing community has been a perennial issue for the Town of Aurora, but more work is needed to determine just how big the shortfall actually is. This was the sentiment coming out of last week\u2019s Council meeting where Council members and local sports advocates discussed […]<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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-25884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Ju","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-12 05:55:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25884","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=25884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25884\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}