Victoria city councillors have again delayed a decision on where to build the replacement Crystal Pool while staff investigate “new opportunities.”
Councillors met in private Thursday to discuss those opportunities and directed staff to report back as quickly as possible.
A report on the project provided no further details except to say that a “new opportunity” had presented itself since council last discussed the issue on Jan. 9.
Mayor Lisa Helps said council remains committed to locating the pool in the city’s North Park or Hillside Quadra neighbourhoods.
“The reason that we were in camera this morning is because the new opportunities involved the potential acquisition of lands,” she said at a committee of the whole following the private meeting.
“So that is not something we can discuss in public. So we’ll be back as soon as possible with more information.”
Councillors decided last month to return to the original design for a 50-metre pool and fitness centre rather than start over and spend $725,000 on a new feasibility study. They directed staff to report back on possible sites — including the previous plan to build the new pool beside the existing facility in Central Park at 2275 Quadra St.
Councillors also singled out a city-owned parking lot at 940 Caledonia Ave. beside Royal Athletic Park as worthy of consideration.
The report to council Thursday examined the advantages and disadvantage of those two sites, as well as two other locations in Central Park, an open field west of Central Middle School and a parking lot beside Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
Once a new site is selected, staff will have to develop a new budget and timelines for completing the next phase of the work, the report says.
In deciding last month to proceed with the original design, council abandoned its decision in June 2019 to start from scratch on the project after spending more than $2 million on planning and design work.
The consensus then was that the city should investigate the possibility of building a pool that included a broad range of amenities, including a community centre, child care and affordable housing.
But council reversed course last month, arguing that the public was getting weary of ongoing delays and wanted to see the project move forward.
Helps noted at the time that there was a “great deal of risk” involved in delaying the project further, given the age of Crystal Pool and the cost of keeping it open.
“We have a responsibility for that risk,” she said. Helps reassured residents that the city has an “active maintenance program in place for the existing pool to manage the risk, and to let you all know as well that council is committed to replacing the facility.”
