The Orillia Rowing Club has requested the city waive a variety of development fees for its new facilities — the cost of which may otherwise put the project in peril.
Over the past year, the club has lobbied the city for new facilities at Kitchener Park, which club officials say provides far better rowing conditions than its current home at Tudhope Park.
Since then, council has approved a lease agreement with the club, on the condition the boathouse facilities come at no cost to the city, and the club estimated a $250,000 budget to construct its new home.
However, the anticipated costs of the site plan approval process, various permits and development fees, and a city requirement to pave 19 parking spaces at Kitchener Park, totalling more than $140,000, have dramatically increased the budget envisioned by the club.
“If we have to pay all of these expenses, I don’t think we can move ahead, at least not this year,” club representative Anne Hodkin said during Monday’s council meeting.
Though the club has raised roughly $120,000 from community members and businesses, and is set to apply for an Ontario Trillium Foundation grant this year, Hodkin fears for the project given the costs of the city’s various permits and fees.
“We’ve got $120,000, which people have actually given us, from many businesses and local people who are really excited that we’re going to do this,” she said. “I’m sitting here thinking we can’t do this. We’d have to get another $300,000 because we have to pay all these fees.”
Hodkin argued the club’s requests were “reasonable,” noting the City of Mississauga fully funded rowing club facilities for its community and, if the city was constructing the boathouse itself, the fees would be exempt.
She also mentioned Kitchener Park has adequate parking facilities.
“Paving an adequate car park, which is actually naturally drained, seems a bit crazy to me, as the car park can be used by anybody today,” she said. “Most of the kids get dropped off at five o’clock in the morning; parents don’t stay or, in the summer months, they actually ride their bikes.”
Following the presentation, Coun. Jay Fallis questioned where the project, and the club, would be if these exemptions were not provided.
“I can’t say we won’t move forward with the project, but we won’t be moving forward with it this year. We can’t afford it,” Hodkin said. “What we have found out is, for new builds, it is more difficult to get the same amount of grants as you would get if you are doing a refurbishment of an existing building or a modification or an expansion.”
Should the new boathouse fail to come to fruition, Hodkin said the club would likely approach the city with plans to expand its current facilities, which have become cramped in recent years.
“We could stay there, but then we’d be coming back and saying we want to expand it, and it’s not the best water (at Tudhope Park). It really isn’t the best water,” she said. “I could try and make it work, but we’d be coming back to say we need to expand what we’ve got.”
Coun. Janet-Lynne Durnford said she is fine with allowing most of the club’s requests, barring an exemption for the site plan approval process.
“I would find it very difficult to support exempting the project from the site plan control process. It’s an essential process,” she said. “I think that any building that has been put so close to the waterfront (needs) to go through that process. We need to make sure that it’s meeting our bylaws, our policies, our engineering standards — all of those things.”
Later in Monday’s council meeting, Fallis brought forward a notice that he will introduce a reconsideration motion to permit the club’s requests at the next meeting of council.
“It has to be a reconsideration because in our original motion on the rowing club, we had identified that there wouldn’t be any cost associated,” he said. “If you’re going to basically say that (we) exempt costs for various fees for the rowing club, it has to be a reconsideration.”
A reconsideration vote requires two-thirds of council to agree to bring the issue back to the council table for debate.
