Community hall discussion comes back to council table
By Timothy Schafer
The plans for a Grand Forks community hall could be back on the front burner after the idea resurfaced in city council chambers recently.
The conversation regarding a community hall in the city was ignited at the council table recently, with regional district Area D (rural Grand Forks) director Roly Russell providing the spark.
He sat in on the Dec. 12 committee-of-the-whole meeting and asked council directly if it wanted to re-open discussions on the logistics of construction of a community hall for the city.
“I think we all know that has been a hot topic for a very long time, with a lot of different initiatives going in to plan for that,” he said.
There have been a number of feasibility reports completed over the last dozen years on a community hall, he said, but many have stalled out and lost steam.
He asked council if it was willing to enter into a conversation again and try and figure out what the potential now for a community hall in Grand Forks might look like.
A survey through Boundary Community Futures went out to residents about the prospects of a hall, and an overwhelming amount of people said yes.
The survey had 312 respondents of which 96 per cent said they wanted a
community hall.
City chief administrative officer Doug Allin weighed in and said city staff have had discussions on it and were looking at it in a roundabout way, knowing that a community centre would be a integral part of capital planning.
“If council does decide to make that sort of commitment, that’s a bit
of a shift in priorities,” he said.
“We will have to come back at some point and ask the electorate to borrow money and potentially enter into a service that would be shared, similar to what we have with the regional district over the aquatic centre.”
The last attempt at realizing a hall for the community was in 2006. A
conceptual drawing and a lot of work was done at the time on the design for a hall, Allin explained.
“We were two thirds down the way on this,” he said to council. “Now we are looking at annual operational costs that could run about $500,000 to operate it.”
Russell disagreed that it would require a change in priorities of council.
“What we are requesting at this point is that council be interested in stating if it is willing (to go) further in this conversation or not,” he said.
Operational costs are an issue if it moves forward, Russell acknowledged, but it was not the intent of the question.
“I am interested in having that kind of discussion,” said Coun. Christine Thompson.
“The plan that was put forward in 2006 was basically a Taj Mahal, which I don’t think is required.”
She added that she was happy to sit down and have a discussion of what
the city was looking at, what it wanted to do, and how the cost could be shared.
Coun. Chris Hammet wanted to see a contracted developer come in and
build a hotel convention centre instead.
“It would be a real multi-use facility,” she said, with numerous events capable of being booked in. The hall would be self-funded, not an asset the city would acquire.
Allin noted that a city-owned hall could be built on a city-owned site with eco-housing going in around it to help support the funding of the city’s operation of the hall.
The community hall will be referred to the Jan. 16 city council regular meeting for discussion and decision.