Wellness Centre pool may briefly close
The Peterborough Sport and Wellness Centre may undergo $3.25 million in renovations in 2021 that would close the pool for next summer.
At a general committee meeting on Tuesday, councillors asked city staff apply for a bit more than $1 million from the federal and provincial governments in COVID-19 stimulus funding to help pay for the renovations.
Peterborough is eligible for a grant of $1,054,190, according to a new city staff report. If the city gets that money, it will leave the city to pay $2.2 million — some of which has already been set aside for the eventual repairs. Still, the city would still need to find about $1.9 million — which councillors plan to precommit in the city’s 2022 budget.
The plan is still preliminary, however. Councillors would have to vote a final time at a meeting on Dec. 14 to make it official.
The renovations would involve replacing the pool’s aging HVAC system, combining the three change rooms off the pool area into one large, universal change room and rebuilding a new front desk area for better COVID-19 safety and better accessibility.
The project is expected to take four to six months to complete. The staff report recommends closing the pool and change rooms from April until September or October.
The pool’s HVAC system — called a Dectron — is 15 years old and ought to be replaced before it breaks down, states a staff report.
“The Dectron is in very poor condition … We’re trying to expedite that work and get it done,” said city treasurer Richard Freymond at the meeting on Tuesday.
Coun. Keith Riel asked what Fleming College’s contribution is to the project, since the centre is on Fleming property and students have access to it. He was told by city staff that the college contributes to city reserve funds for Wellness Centre maintenance, and that students mostly use the centre’s gyms rather than the pool.
The funding the city can apply for is meant to help municipalities cover repairs and upgrades in this time of COVID-19 pandemic, and as well as to retrofit buildings for better pandemic safety.
Also at Tuesday’s committee meeting:
> Trent University Land and Nature Area Plan: Trent University officials gave a presentation to councillors about their plans for their nature lands.
Julie Davis, Trent’s vice-president of external relations and advancement, and Armand La Barge, chair of the board of governors, spoke via Microsoft Teams.
Trent owns1,400 acres of land. The nature areas, including buffers and corridors, include more than 30 kilometres of nature trails.
Davis said a new draft plan that Trent board of governors will soon be voting to approve sets aside 60 per cent of the main Symons campus as nature areas and green space.
A draft of the plan is available on Trent’s website, and Trent is still collecting public feedback on the plan until Jan. 4, 2021.
> City 2021 budget: Coun. Keith Riel moved that the city buy a full-page Examiner advertisement to explain to the public in detail how council plans to spend its 2021 budget.
Councillors sat down for budget talks recently, and voted to spend $292.2 million on city services and $73.2 million on construction projects. The budget would impose a 2.99 per cent tax increase on ratepayers in 2021, which is about $123 than in 2020, for a total tax bill of about $4,259 for the average house assessed at $260,000.
Although The Examiner covered budget talks, Riel said he wanted to offer citizens additional information about where council is using tax money. Councillors voted in favour of buying an ad.