Rocky View County (RVC) council will sell a parcel of County-owned land to fund a recreation facility in Springbank.
At a regular meeting Feb. 25, councillors debated a notice of motion from Couns. Kim McKylor and Jerry Gautreau to sell an approximately 25-acre parcel of land located in Cochrane and dedicate the proceeds – along with $2.2 million of Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) funds earmarked for Springbank – towards a new Springbank community centre.
“We don’t have a recreation facility that is adequate for growth,” McKylor said. “We have a 50-year-old Park for All Seasons that desperately needs capital upgrades or an investment in new recreation.”
McKylor said the fee-simple land in another municipality could be monetized and “used for the benefit of recreation in our County,” and argued she was monetizing an asset the County didn’t have a use for. According to McKylor the lands are currently leased to Volker Stevin Contracting Ltd., and generate approximately $17,000 of annual income.
“We need to be creative on how we’re funding these things,” she said.
While garnering support from most of her colleagues, McKylor’s notice of motion was not embraced by all.
Coun. Samanntha Wright said the decision amounted to “putting a cart before the horse,” and questioned why the funds from the sale wouldn’t be distributed to serve the recreation needs of all nine divisions. She also argued the decision should be made after the release of a new Recreation Master Plan later this year, which will include a prioritized list of recreation needs around the County.
McKylor argued, because past needs assessments have already identified a Springbank facility as a priority, it was “not a bad thing” to immediately allocate funds in anticipation of the eventual release of the Recreation Master Plan. That money has been allocated, she said, but not spent.
“If no projects get identified, then council can make the decision to put money back into the pot for general use in the County,” she said.
Further, she said, it was important to identify a project in Springbank so the County doesn’t lose out on the MSI funds.
“MSI money has been sitting, not being used,” she said. “It’s designated for a Springbank project [and] has been for a decade, and that money is going to go away if we don’t crystallize a project.”
Coun. Kevin Hanson, meanwhile, suggested there may be better options to finance a recreation centre, such as a borrowing bylaw.
“I found this whole thing to be premature,” he said. “Let’s finish the [Recreation] Master Plan, figure out how we’re going to fund recreation and do it in an orderly fashion, with good business ethos and good financial decisions.”
Reeve Greg Boehlke, while acknowledging debate around how funds should be allocated was important, took umbrage with Hanson’s insinuation that it was poor decision-making, saying the sale of the land had come up previously in confidential in-camera discussions.
Hanson’s suggestion that the decision seemed to be a “whim” appeared to strike a personal nerve with McKylor.
“Hanson doesn’t have to support it; it doesn’t matter,” she said. “This is for his residents, too, so I work on behalf of his residents if he’s not willing to do that.”
Hanson countered he wasn’t against building a community centre.
“I have more residents than Division 2 that would use that community centre,” he said. “What my whole point was is how we were choosing to finance it. Somehow, we’re blending a financial decision together with prioritizing the building of a community centre. They’re not related at all. By combining them together, it means we’re not looking as carefully as we can at what those financing options are.”
Regardless of the opposition, council voted 5-3 to direct administration to sell the land at fair market value – Couns. Crystal Kissel joined Hanson and Wright in voting against the motion. That decision made, Hanson supported setting aside the proceeds for a facility in Springbank, and a motion to that effect was carried 6-2.
Coun. Jerry Gautreau was absent from the meeting.
Ben Sherick, AirdrieToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @BenSherick
