ÎLE-PERROT
Despite Pincourt’s withdrawal, pool project to go ahead
Despite the town of Pincourt’s contentious withdrawal notice from an inter-municipal association aiming to build an indoor pool, the mayors of the two remaining municipalities still hope to complete the project by the end of 2017.
Last week, Pincourt city council’s unanimously opted to withdraw from the Régie des équipements en loisirs de L’Île-Perrot (RELIP), leaving the neighbouring towns of Île-Perrot and Notre-Dame-de-l’Île-Perrot to build a new pool complex.
“For Île-Perrot and Notre-Dame-de-l’Île-Perrot the project continues,” said Île-Perrot Mayor Marc Roy, who chairs the RELIP. “We can’t stop because one town is unable to commit to its promise. We will continue with our process. It’s certainly a shame for citizens of Pincourt. For sure if they want to come swim here, it’ll be very expensive since their town has withdrawn (from RELIP).”
The pool project will likely have to be scaled back without Pincourt’s participation, said Notre-Dame-de-l’Île-Perrot Mayor Danie Deschênes.
She said while the new pool had been tagged in the range of $15 million, the two remaining towns involved could opt for something more affordable, though they will be counting on the province to pay about 60 to 75 per cent of the project.
“We are going forward with the project but we might change some aspects of it because it’s our job to make sure we can actually afford the project. So the project might be a bit smaller,” she conceded, adding an indoor pool is a facility desired by residents in all three towns. “At the end of the day, we will be asking for money from the (provincial) government and we will see what impact it has.
“It will have an impact on the whole project for sure because we won’t be spending money we don’t have.”
Deschênes said the towns need to prepare detailed plans and specifications for the pool before they can request government subsidies.
“This is where we are right now,” she added.
Roy said the two remaining RELIP members should have the means to cover the cost of an inter-municipal indoor pool, though he added this is based on provincial subsidies being approved. The final scope of the project still needs to be prepared with more precise cost estimates.
“If it comes down to $2 million each, that’s not a problem. We are capable of assuming that,” he said, adding it’s a hypothetical estimate. “That’s why we find it a bit lame on Pincourt’s part because they don’t know yet what’s it going to cost. It takes certain steps. We don’t know either. It’s the same for us. If it’s too expensive, we’re not stupid, we always said we won’t proceed.
“It depends on what you want (in a pool complex) — four or six lanes, if you want smaller pool for the kids, a gym for basketball or a conference room,” he continued.
The RELIP could award a contract as early as June for a firm to prepare pool plans and deliver cost estimates, Roy said.
Last fall, the RELIP decided the indoor swimming pool would be constructed in Notre-Damede-l’Île-Perrot at a site located behind a grocery store just off Don-Quichotte Blvd. and which would eventually open onto Forest Avenue. At the time, Pincourt officials had offered that a better option would be a site next to the Chêne-Bleu high school, which is located in its territory.
In Roy’s opinion, the interest of Pincourt officials waned as soon as the Notre-Dame site was selected for the pool. “That’s when they started saying no to what we were doing,” he said, adding the withdrawal notice is based on site selection and not on potential cost overruns.
Since final specifications and costs estimates are still forthcoming, Pincourt council’s decision to drop out of the pool project was premature, according to Deschênes, adding Pincourt’s withdrawal didn’t come as a surprise to her based on contentious talks held since last year.
“Pincourt has been keeping us from advancing on this project since last year,” she said. “For us, it’s not bad news they are leaving RELIP. It’s actually good news since we can get to work.”
Pincourt officials decided to opt out because the pool is not to be situated in their town, Deschênes said. “I know it’s a fact because they kept pushing us to go back to the study which we paid for, the analysis made on the different sites,” she added. “The analysis really proved that the best venue to plan this was in Notre-Dame which is the centre of the island.”
Meanwhile, Pincourt officials issued a statement last Wednesday that their now former partners failed to check certain points before awarding any contracts, such as conducting soil tests and characterizing the physical milieu in order to avoid the possibility of discovering conditions that have a major impact on the process only when it was too late. The two partner towns also failed to establish a business plan to assess as accurately as possible potential revenues related to the pool facility and its location as well as site-related operating costs.
Pincourt’s director general Michel Perrier told The Montreal Gazette that the process being followed by the other two, now former, partners was behind the withdrawal from RELIP. The move by Pincourt council was also taken in light of these two municipalities proceeding with tenders to realize the pool, he added.
“It’s not really the site as such, contrary to whatever people want you to believe,” Perrier said. “The site itself was irrelevant. It’s the process. If it was the site at the origin, the town would have pulled out way back when. And that wasn’t the case. We went along with the process. There are a number of questions that were raised and there was actually no answer, or no action was taken toward those. They were a big matter of concern for the town of Pincourt. The town decided to pull out, basically, because there are too many uncertainties in the project right now which could create a financial fiasco.”