Why dedicated benches might not be forever

After her father died in 2001, Marianne Middleton thought it would be nice to dedicate one of Sidney’s public benches in his memory.

So Middleton and her husband, Terry Forsyth, wrote the municipality a cheque for $600, which resulted in a plaque on a concrete bench at the foot of Beacon Avenue overlooking the pier and Haro Strait. The location seemed appropriate, seeing as R. Douglas Jewett had been a sailor.

What the couple found less fitting was the letter they got from the municipality late last year, advising them that the plaque could stay on the bench until 2021, but if they wanted to keep it after that it would cost $3,000 for a 10-year period.

That angered the couple. When they plunked down their $600 for the bench, there was no talk of a time limit. They thought the plaque was to be there in perpetuity. “That’s what we were led to believe,” Forsyth said this week.

The town disagrees, says the open-ended agreements of 2001 made no such guarantees — though nor did they say anything about the dedications being for a fixed duration. Time limits were introduced in 2003 after Sidney, like other municipalities, discovered the cost of maintaining and replacing commemorative benches, picnic tables, planters and the like was outstripping the original payments. It was something that nobody thought about much when such dedications became popular a generation ago.

This story is not unique to the couple, nor to Sidney. Over the past decade or so, many municipalities have decided that when you decide to remember a loved one by dedicating a piece of public furniture, it will be for a specific length of time.

That means some people have, like Middleton and Forsyth, been blindsided years after making what they thought were one-time payments.

In 2016, the municipality of Whistler was accused of a “cash grab” by a man who was told the bench his family paid $1,500 for in 2002 would cost $3,000 for another 10 years.

Similarly, a September letter-to-the-editor in the Rocky Mountain Outlook accused Banff town council of being more interested in a new revenue stream than in the people who had dedicated memorial benches to loved ones.

Some other municipalities, though, have decided to eat the costs. Esquimalt now has fixed terms — $3,000 for benches and $4,000 for tables, for a period of 20 years — but has grandfathered memorials that were dedicated prior to that policy being brought in. Some date back 50 years. Their upkeep comes out of the parks budget.

Sidney council voted down a proposal that would have allowed free, 10-year renewals of the 72 benches that were dedicated before fixed-duration dedications were introduced — though by saying renewals weren’t due until the end of 2021, the town effectively extended the period of coverage. Staff say almost everyone they have dealt with from that group has been understanding and willing to pay the renewal fees. (Sidney also has another 84 memorial benches covered by 10-year agreements, the current cost being $3,000.)

Almost all communities have similar policies now, though the cost and duration differ from municipality to municipality. Adding a plaque to park furniture in Saanich, for example, costs $2,920 for 10 years. In Metchosin, $1,500 brings a red cedar bench with a bronze plaque, installed on a concrete pad and maintained for 10 years. B.C. Parks charges $4,000 to dedicate a classic red cedar picnic table, also for 10 years.

In Colwood, where trees, playground equipment and other amenities may be dedicated, it’s $1,000 to install and maintain a bench for five years, then $432 if you want to renew for another five years. Plaques are an additional $432, renewable every five years.

In Vancouver, dedication of a table or bench costs $4,000 for 10 years — but $25,000 will pay for a “named endowment that provides sustainable funding for the continuous care of a dedicated park bench and preservation of your favourite park.”

Likewise, those who pay $10,000 US to take part in New York City’s 30-year-old Adopt-A-Bench program in Central Park have the comfort of knowing the plaque is there forever.