Skip to content

City to evaluate sports field recommendations

sportsfieldmanagement
A new report looking at the City's sports field management has recommended changes to the current models for both booking process and user fee allocation. File Photo/For Rocky View Publishing

Residents who take advantage of the City’s outdoor sports recreation amenities could see changes to user fees and booking processes in the new year, following recommendations presented to council Dec. 2 in a comprehensive sports field management review.

The report was completed by recreation consultant RC Strategies and, according to Stephen Slawuta with the firm, examined local sports fields, ball diamonds, tennis and pickleball courts, and outdoor skating rinks. Technical information and recorded data were used to inform the study, he said, as well as public engagement feedback.

“We were really quite pleased with the level of participation we had, particularly around the resident survey,” he said. “That enables us to get perspectives from residents that aren’t part of any user groups, who are maybe spontaneous users that are using some of these spaces ‘off the grid,’ as well. That was really important for us, too.”

Feedback indicated – unsurprisingly, Slawuta said – residents feel outdoor sport and recreation amenities are important to quality of life.

“There is very much a desire for quality over quantity. Residents want to see spaces that are functional and that have a high level of amenity over just a bunch of spaces,” he said. “That reflects in our recommendations, moving forward.”

The most significant concern identified in the report, according to Slawuta, is that the City’s population growth has outpaced its rate of facility and amenity development – benchmarking indicated Airdrie has “some gaps” relative to other similarly-sized municipalities.

“It would have been impossible for you to develop at the rate of your population growth over the last 10, 15, 20 years,” he said.

The current fees and allocation model functions fairly well for established user groups, Slawuta said, but presents challenges to groups that are either growing or new and emerging – particularly due to the City’s “per head” fee. A model based on number of participants results in fee inequalities, does not provide for the collection of accurate utilization data and does not incentivize groups to be efficient with the time they book and use, he explained.

Additionally, while resident survey respondents suggested the City should target 20 to 50 per cent cost recovery (which currently varies greatly, Slawuta noted – estimated at nine per cent for sport fields and 40 per cent for ball diamonds), engagement findings also indicated affordability and accessibility were “strongly valued.”

“Obviously, there is, potentially, a bit of a disconnect there,” he said.

In the coming years, according to the report, the City will need to look at investing in the development of a number of new amenities – including six soccer fields, six ball diamonds, two snowbanked rinks, a boarded skating rink, a pickleball court and a tennis court.

However, Slawuta said it will be incumbent on the City to use neighbourhood demographics and demonstrated need in the development of these additions – particularly with regards to spontaneous-use amenities.

A new fee model was also recommended within the report, suggesting the municipality seek to implement hourly rates based on recovering a set percentage of the City’s expenditures. This could see some groups paying slightly more for their amenity usage, he said, while others may be paying less.

“This is something the City should pursue, moving forward, and is going to help address some of those challenges around understanding what your utilization is and creating a bit more of an equitable fee structure,” Slawuta said. “Working with groups to figure out how to minimize impacts and come up with a phasing model is something we think should occur.”

Along with the new model, he added, the report recommends the development of a new manual digital bookings process in 2020, which would also allow for schedules to be posted online so users could see when amenities are available for non-scheduled activities.

“A key finding from the resident survey we fielded was that residents are using a lot of these spaces not as part of a team or program, in a spontaneous nature, quite a bit,” Slawuta said. “They also identified…that sometimes a barrier for them is knowing what fields they can and can’t access, and groups identified that as maybe an area of conflict for them, as well.”



Comments


No Facebook? No problem.

Here is how you can stay connected to the Airdrie City View and access local news in your community:

Bookmark our homepage for easy access to local news.
Pick up a copy of our newspaper and read local news that you cannot get elsewhere.
Sign up for our FREE newsletters to have local news & more delivered daily to your email inbox.
Download our mobile icon to have access to our news right at your fingertips.

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks