Vancouver Park Board is revisiting plans to decommission hot tubs at three community centres after several commissioners raised concerns about the move.
Last week, Green party commissioner Michael Wiebe, along with Non-Partisan Association commissioners Sarah Kirby-Yung and John Coupar, questioned staff on the planned closure of the whirlpools at Kitsilano, Marpole and Dunbar community centres.
Director of recreation Donnie Rosa told commissioners that the aging hot tubs have become a safety concern. None of those community centres have pools so there are no lifeguards on site and, she added, a lack of consistent maintenance has led to a lot of issues and shut downs. The hot tub at Kits community centre has already been shut down for several months due to mechanical issues.
“We’ve worked with Vancouver Coastal Health, WorkSafeBC and TSBC [Technical Safety B.C.] to figure out ways to improve them and what we came to was decommissioning was the right option,” Rosa said.
“These are older whirlpools and unfortunately there are design issues that make them unsafe.”
Rosa said the board will consult with users at the community centres before reporting back to commissioners with the results and possible alternate uses for the spaces.
“We are looking at and working with the community, including the CCAs [community centre associations], to look at how to repurpose the space for best and highest use,” she said.
Both Coupar and Kirby-Yung said they had heard from a number of residents upset about the impending closures.
“There’s a lot of resistance in the community, as we all know at the park board people are very happy with you build things, they’re not so happy when you shut them down,” said Coupar, who is the park board’s liaison to Dunbar Community Centre. “There’s a lot of seniors in the Dunbar area, the hot tub is used quite a bit for therapeutic use and I think it is really important that we try and find some solution to that.”
Before Kitsilano Community Centre shut down its hot tub late last year, Bill Wadsworth used it five to seven days a week. He says the hot tubs are “an integral part of the community and the people they serve” and started an online petition aimed at saving them.
“In my opinion this is another attempt in a long string of cost cutting measures by an underfunded parks board that is slowly going broke,” he told the Courier. “It is the reasoning behind the parks board’s plans to decommission a number of community swimming pools in the city. The failed attempt to install pay parking along Spanish Banks…
“On one hand, city hall wants to brand Vancouver as a world class city,” he said. “Part of that world class stature is [having] the amenities that come with that. So while the city has been building bike paths like there is no tomorrow, the city has been robbing the parks board of vital and essential funding to maintain, refurbish and repair the city’s community centres and pools.”
jkerr@vancourier.com
