City looking at major increase in costs of commemorative benches
There are so many rotting and broken commemorative park benches in Windsor that city carpenters can’t keep up with the repairs.
With 85 per cent of the benches in need of repair, the popular program should be overhauled and the price to have a bench inscribed hiked, says a city staff report.
Of the 1,500 benches in Windsor parks, 685 are sponsored — dedicated to a loved one or marking an anniversary. But the price for sponsorship doesn’t take into account the true cost. The original fee, when the program began 20 years ago, was $250 for an inscribed wood-slat bench on a steel frame, installed in a city park and maintained forever.
That price was increased to $750 by 2014, when the program was suspended due to the backlog of repairs and the need to review the commemorative bench and tree programs. The city’s cost to buy and install the benches is now $1,780 for a wood bench and $3,299 for a metal bench. So the report is recommending the fees be increased to $1,800 and $3,300, respectively.
As well, it proposes terms of 10 years for wood benches and 20 years for metal benches, after which the sponsoring family could renew. A review of commemorative programs at other cities found most sponsorships have a fixed term.
“Obviously, these benches don’t last forever. They’ve only paid once but the expense is continuing,” said Jan Wilson, the city’s executive director of parks and recreation. Existing commemorative benches will continue to be maintained at no extra charge, she added.
Wilson and parks operations manager Yvan Mantha said while 85 per cent of the benches need repair, none are unsafe. Unsafe benches are immediately removed until they can be fixed or replaced. When the wood boards rot or break, city workers remove them and replace them with temporary boards. Then carpenters use a stencil to inscribe the message into the board with a router.
But that replacement system is taking too long these days, given the large number of older benches and the availability of carpenters, said Mantha.
“Instead of going through and doing all these major repairs of all these benches, I wanted to get a program in place to make it easier to maintain, quicker for us to service,” he said. Those who have paid for the bench memorials to their loved ones expect “that we’re out there repairing them as quickly as they can.”
He’s proposing replacing the message carved into the wood with a plaque mounted on the bench, because it will last longer. The message carved with a router exposes untreated wood to the elements and weakens the integrity of the board.
The staff report, which goes to council’s environment, transportation and public safety standing committee on Wednesday, also recommends hiking the prices for commemorative trees. The current price of $275 has remained the same for 14 years. But the cost of a tree is $500 without a plaque. The price should go up to $500 for a tree without a plaque and $1,080 with a plaque, the report says.
Both the tree and bench programs continue to be popular, Wilson said. In fact, some people are “anxiously waiting” for the resumption of the bench program.