Twinpad arena site plan up for approval

A site plan for a new city-owned arena and pool at Trent University is up for final approval of council Tuesday – even though the plan includes filling in part of a wetland.

To build a new twin-pad arena – and maybe a pool, too, if council decides to go to the expense – the city would have to fill in more than 11,800 square feet of wetland.

Councillors learned this at a meeting Oct. 30, when urban design planner Brian Buchardt presented the site plan.

That’s the arrangement of the building, roads and parking lots on the site on Nassau Mills Rd. and Pioneer Rd.

Buchardt told councillors Oct. 30 that the wetland is large; the filledin portion is but a fraction of it.

He also said the city would build a doubly large “compensation wetland” of species from the local ecology, which would be monitored by biologists for five years to ensure it flourishes.

That was good enough for all councillors except Coun. Diane Therrien; she was the only one to vote against the site plan.

On Tuesday night, that same site plan gets a final vote from council after citizens get their chance to speak out about it.

Although nobody pre-registered to speak at the meeting, anyone who attends is allowed to address council before the vote.

Two people who attended the meeting on Oct. 30 – when the public wasn’t allowed to speak - told The Examiner they were planning to attend and speak up on Tuesday.

Basil Conlin, a naturalist, told

The Examiner that he’s concerned about the survival of Western chorus frogs, stinkpot turtles and snapping turtles that live in the wetland.

Debbie Jenkins, a research biologist who is working toward her PhD at Trent University, said the university hasn’t evaluated its wetlands so it’s not known whether the wetland is provincially significant.

“Not evaluated does not equate not significant,” she said.

Meanwhile, it’s still unclear whether the city will include a pool in the same building with the twinpad arena.

With the pool, the building would cost $54 million; removing it from the plan would be expected to reduce the cost by at least $13 million.

The city has a site plan and building design that includes the pool, in case council goes for it.

A debate on the inclusion of the pool may not happen Tuesday – council is expected to only to vote on approval of the site plan.

The meeting is on Tuesday this week, due to the closure of City Hall on Monday for Remembrance Day.

The Examiner website offers livestreaming, tweets and blogging from the meeting. It begins at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.

NOTE: See more city council coverage on Pages A1 and A2.