Decision on new Regina aquatic facility and how to pay for it set for final council meeting

The final meeting of this Regina city council will now feature a decision on how to pay for the ballooning price of a new aquatic facility and potentially whether it should be built at all. 

Ward 4 Coun. Lori Bresciani has been advocating for a reduction in the scope of the long-planned aquatic facility.

"Council, I'm going to say, is very antsy to get this through. And we know it's going to go through. We know we're going to have a pool, 100 per cent," said Bresciani, who is running for mayor in this fall's election. 

Instead of building the current proposed facility, Bresciani suggested taking $61 million and using it to renovate the aging Lawson facility. The proposal would also consider other locations to build a new pool with the hope of securing more funding from the provincial or federal government. 

The proposal has already received push back from city staff, who warned that potentially changing the scope of the already approved project could put $128 million in funding from the provincial and federal governments in jeopardy.

Ward 2 Coun. Bob Hawkins said he's opposed to the proposal for another reason.

"The danger here is that instead of building one first-class, 21st-century pool that will last for 50 years and meet the 21st-century needs of our young people, instead of doing that, we'll somehow get two second-rate pools," Hawkins told council on Tuesday. 

How council got here

The construction of a new aquatic facility in Regina has been in the works for years and a preliminary plan to build the new pool at the Taylor Field lands has already been approved by council. 

Updated numbers provided earlier this year indicated the cost of the project increased by $85 million, split between inflationary costs on construction and design scope clarity. 

The total cost of a new aquatic centre is now pegged at $245 million, with at least $128 million of that accounted for under Ottawa's Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program.

As a result of the cost increase, instead of the $81.5 million the city was originally projected to be responsible for, the latest estimates put the city's required contribution at $139.6 million. That means the City of Regina would be responsible for more than the original cost estimate for the entire aquatic centre.

The ballooning cost has proven to be a point of contention for the spending-conscious council, which asked staff to find a way to fund the new price tag. 

That report landed at executive committee on Wednesday. 

It proposed three options, with the first two taking various money from already funded projects to help bring down the amount council would take on. The report outlined that would put those projects in peril.

Instead, staff have recommended the use of debt to fund the extra cost, which would be paid for by a one-time dedicated mill rate increase of 2.7 per cent — working out to $65 a year for the average household — or a dedicated 0.5 per cent mill rate increase phased in over five years. That would work out to an additional $12 per year for the average household for five years.  

A decision is expected to be made at the final meeting of council on Oct. 9.