New plan looks to map out Wellesley’s future rec. offerings
FUTURE UPGRADES TO THE ST.
Clements arena and Hawkesville Community Centre are among a host of issues touched on as Wellesley Township develops a new recreation master plan.
From off-leash dog parks to more community activities, the township has been receiving feedback from residents. Most recently, a survey carried out between December 11 and January 3 generated 571 responses, data from which were presented to councillors meeting Tuesday night.
Tracey McQueen of the planning firm McQueen Galloway Associates (MGA) was on hand to present the results.
In total, MGA made 63 recommendations across a range of issues. The plan makes suggestions for the township to identify all costs of program delivery, including a sliding scale of 10-100 per cent recovery through user fees, a park classification system, a dog park strategy and plans to encourage more volunteers.
However increasing the volunteer profile takes time and energy to do, McQueen said.
“Every volunteer wants to feel valued, so they just don’t want to sign up. They want a job description. They want commitment. They want a schedule. They want [it to be] just like it is a job… So that requires volunteer recognition, special awards for volunteers, and those are all new programs for you because you really haven’t been in this delivery of programming in the past,” she told council.
In her presentation, McQueen recommended that staff review the plan every year to make updates as needed.
“It’s a flexible document, because there’s always things that are changing, not only internally, but externally. There’s trends, groups’ capacity, there’s grant opportunities that could change priorities,” McQueen said. She noted the pandemic as an example of something that had an unpredictable impact, both positive and negative, on recreation.
Mayor Joe Nowak noted that the desires expressed from the community-engagement process align with the community feedback he’s experienced over his time on council.
“There’s an awful lot of recommendations, a lot of work that has to be done over the next number of years,” he said.
He noted, however, that the report does not include many recommendations in terms of adding more staff.
McQueen explained the additional staff would primarily be in the area of programming.
“Right now you really aren’t delivering any programming,” she said, noting that the current
community volunteers will not be able to delivery all the desired programming
In the survey, 75 per cent of respondents said more programming should be offered within the township, either by the municipality or other service providers. Sports programs (74 per cent) and fitness classes (72 per cent) topped the list, with general wellness programs at 52 per cent.
When it comes to funding such programs, more than half (53 per cent) indicated they should be paid for by user fees, while 31 per cent said costs should be covered through a combination of user fees, property taxes and grants/fundraising.
Looking generally at a 10-year timeline, the current master plan follows up on the previous exercise carried out in 2014. The new Township of Wellesley Recreation Centre covers off much of that document drafted a decade ago, prompting the latest process, which got underway last summer.