Pay to play: Fredericton to spend $145K on new recreation master plan

The City of Fredericton wants to find out what facilities and services its residents want when it comes to sports fields and community facilities — and it's about to spend $145,000 to do it. 

The city has hired Toronto-based firm Sierra Planning and Management to research and draft a new "recreation and leisure master plan" to help guide how Fredericton develops those amenities for the next 15 years.

The consultants will examine the facilities and services currently available to residents, and weigh them against the city's growing population and what people say they want.

"Everything is going to be developed in consultation with the community," said Jon Hack, a director with Sierra Planning, speaking to reporters after Monday's council meeting.

"So in the coming months there's going to be a lot of consultation that happens, and lots of opportunities for residents and those that volunteer their time and efforts to make recreation work to come along and give us their opinion."

Hack said the consultation will involve online and in-person components, with an initial round to hear what residents want, along with a follow-up round to get feedback to what the consultants bring forward.

Those consultations will also involve agencies and committees that can offer an accessibility lens to the plan as it's developed, he said.

"I can't tell you that we'll hit every person that we need to in terms of getting their input, but if we continue over the next 18 months hopefully we'll we'll get as far as we possibly can."

Impact of previous plan unclear

The new recreation plan now will not be Fredericton's first.

Fredericton released a recreation master plan back in 2008, although it's unclear how that influenced the city's capital recreation projects or service delivery models.

One of the costliest recommendations in the previous plan was the creation of a second municipally-owned indoor swimming pool, which at the time was estimated to cost between $8 and $9 million.

The plan called for the pool to be built by 2016. However, a new 25-metre pool remains in the works and likely still won't be built for years to come.

"Excellent question," said Deputy Mayor Greg Ericson, when asked what the result of the previous plan was.

"I don't know the answer specifically, but that's going to be part of the first phase [of the research for the new plan]."

Hack added that the research for the new plan will involve looking at how the previous recreation plan was implemented, along with other smaller recreation studies that have been done in recent years.

"So we'll have to wait for the technical report to be completed, but the, you know, the success that has been achieved will be laid out for people to see," he said.

Hack said public consultations will begin later this year and the final plan should be presented to council by November 2024.