West Shore residents could have a new outdoor pool in their future if a feasibility study in the works by the City of Colwood and the Rotary Club of West Shore produces positive results.
The service club presented their pitch for a new outdoor swimming facility at council’s Oct. 10 meeting, with council voting unanimously to direct staff to work with the club on a study.
Presenter Linda Mackie opened the pitch with a personal anecdote on how big of a role West Vancouver’s outdoor pools played in her childhood, and her surprise at the lack of similar facilities in Colwood when she moved there later in life.
She said existing outdoor pools serve as important public gathering spaces in communities that have them. Colwood seems to be in a good position to benefit from that given its rapidly growing population through large developments like Royal Bay and The Beachlands.
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With the climate crisis, she said an outdoor pool could also provide an increasingly important cooling centre for the community, and if designed for it, could attract swim competitions as well as recreational users.
Mackie said initial research by the Rotary Club showed an estimated capital cost for an outdoor pool facility would be in the neighbourhood of $12 million, and their intent would be to help the city cover that cost through donations, grants, and partnerships with other community organizations and municipalities.
But it was the potential annual operating costs of such a facility that council highlighted as a potential barrier during their discussion after the presentation.
“It doesn’t take a strong sales pitch to convince me an outdoor pool is a great thing,” said Coun. Ian Ward. “You’d be looking at an average of $150,000 a year in operating expenses. That’s what we would be looking at on an annual basis – slightly under a one-per-cent tax hike.”
Ward, and several other councilors who spoke at the meeting, said finding a good model to recover those operating costs would be the key to making a project like this possible, rather than coming up with the capital costs.
The Rotary Club said they too had come to that conclusion, and are already exploring the possibility of soliciting community donors not just for capital funds but for an endowment designed to provide funds to help reduce the operating overhead each year.
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