The City of Kingston, Ont. Councillors deliberated late December 2022 on whether to add pools to the city. This decision was made following a $16.5million federal grant to Loyalist Township for the reconstruction of a W.J. Shutdown pool. Henderson Recreation Centre in Amherstview.
A motion was passed by the City Council asking staff to return next year with strategies for enhancing relationships with partner agencies as well as estimates of the cost of building and operating additional pools in Kingston.
Loyalist Cataraqui District Coun. Paul Chaves, who is the author of this motion, stated: “We are proud to be a sports tourism community. We can do sport tourism across many fields, including soccer, baseball and anything on the ice. Hockey, curling, broomball. Pickleball is something we’ve tried, but swimming is something that we cannot do. We are unable to host tournaments at the 50-m [164ft] city pool.
Chaves noted how often constituents spoke about how they tried to register online for swimming lessons during the municipal election campaign.
Pittsburgh District Coun. says, “It’s probably the thing I hear the most and it is probably the most expensive thing to add to the city.” Ryan Boehme was a supporter for the proposal to explore options in order to initiate the process of building a pool.
However, he was cautious because he didn’t want the process for adding pools to take more than 60 years.
There were two camps of councillors: those who supported more pools and those who were unsure because of the associated costs.
There are two things you need to know about swimming pools. Pools are wonderful. The second is that pools can be very, very costly,” states Kingston’s Mayor Bryan Paterson.
Paterson suggested that this idea be brought back to the table while strategic planning takes place in spring 2023. He did mention that he was conscious of the urgency required to access the funds Loyalist Township received.
Loyalist Township’s pool had been closed for many decades due to mechanical problems. Now, with funding, the pool will now be rebuilt, with an emphasis on increasing its energy consumption and sustainability.
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