Kincardine council okays engineering consult for community centre in Tiverton

Kincardine council has approved a 30- to 60-minute paid consultation with an experienced engineering firm to help the Whitney Crawford Community Centre ad hoc committee decide how to proceed with this project.

In committee-of-the-whole Wednesday night (July 8), committee spokesman Joe Cottrill outlined the results of a survey conducted about the project which had more than 100 responses.

"The trends have not changed since our last report," he said. "The majority (80 per cent) believe the right location is attached to the current arena (Tiverton Sports Centre). and most (85 per cent) agree that the library should be included in this project."

The survey respondents also pointed to the need for additional space for a meeting room, splitting the main hall into two sections to allow proper venue sizing and the option of simultaneous events, public washrooms in the building, a regular built-in stage, and making future sports or exercise options available.

Mayor Anne Eadie said renovating the current community centre is not an option because the last council agreed to demolish that structure and build a new facility. "It's good to see the community agrees (via the survey) to attach it to the sports centre, and to include the library. That's a good idea."

She noted that council had hoped to have some funding from Ontario Power Generation (OPG) through the agreement to host the proposed Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) for low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste - to the tune of $1.5-million in a milestone payment, and $700,000 to $800,000 in an annual payment. However, that has not yet come in due to the delay in that project.

"We will have to wait until budget time to figure out the funding for this (community centre) project," she said. "We spent all last council term debating this project. I would like to see us commit to it for 2016."

Councillor Maureen Couture supported funding the engineering consultation to get this project moving along.

Cottrill said the purpose of the consultation is to focus the committee's efforts on the right order, format and type of information to collect next, in order to efficiently advance its planning strategies.

Councillor Randy Roppel suggested council grant the committee approval to approach NA Engineering on this consultation since that company is already familiar with the project.

"If the cost is under $5,000, you can be exempt from the procurement policy," said clerk Donna MacDougall.

"It won't cost $5,000," said Cottrill. "We're looking at a few hundred dollars. We want to do things in the right order."

"I think it's a good idea," said Eadie.

"As a councillor, I'm going to want a number to consider at budget time," said deputy mayor Jacqueline Faubert.

"That's why we need a more formal consultation," said Cottrill.

Committee-of-the-whole agreed to fund the engineering consultation; and council endorsed that later in the meeting.

"Thank you to the committee for being so professional," said Eadie.

"And cheap," added Cottrill.