It’s going to take multimillions more before any games kick off at Harewood Centennial Park turf fields.
The project to construct two artificial turf fields at the park this year has doubled in expected costs, and Nanaimo city councillors, at a finance meeting Wednesday, April 19, recommended that another $5 million be spent on the project.
The total cost will now be $10 million, with $3.3 million in federal and provincial grant money, $700,000 from Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools. The city will cover the rest of the cost, though $3 million of that will come from the recently directed growing communities funding from the province.
The project was tendered earlier this year, with the lowest bid coming in at $7.4 million, not including $1.5 million for the cost of the turf, plus contingencies.
“Although staff and the consultants expected the project to exceed funding available, the tender prices exceeded expectations,” noted a city staff report.
However, Richard Harding, general manager of parks, recreation and culture, said staff continues to strongly recommend that the city proceed with the project, saying these sorts of facilities are game-changers for sports programming.
Councillors weren’t unanimously in favour of proceeding with the project, as arguments were raised about the cost overruns as well as environmental and health concerns.
But Coun. Erin Hemmens made the motion to accept staff’s recommendation, saying she can’t say no to increasing youth sports opportunities in the community, and Coun. Janice Perrino expressed a similar view.
“I could never say no to this project. It’s too important,” she said. “Costs are going to go up anyway. I hate that the costs have gone up, but Harewood deserves this project to be done … I don’t want to wait another year or two or three.”
Coun. Hilary Eastmure said she woke up in the middle of the night worrying about costs of artificial turf, but said the $3 million from the growing communities fund softens the financial hit.
“This is a perfect example of a place we could put that money to really good use in a neighbourhood that really needs it and a school that deserves it,” she said.
Coun. Tyler Brown said in his experience on council, projects that are over budget by this extent have usually been pulled from consideration.
“Over 100 per cent project escalation is totally irresponsible to be approving,” he said.
Coun. Ben Geselbracht asked Doug Wournell, a sport architect who was participating in the meeting, about any links between artificial turf and cancer. The expert replied that those links have been debunked and the only health impacts of turf fields are positive ones related to fitness; however, Geselbracht and Coun. Paul Manly suggested they still had some doubts about the science.
“It’s really difficult to link, but I think we are living in a world where we are overrun with a lot of chemicals and there’s a lot more cancers out there and a lot of people are getting sick for unknown reasons,” Geselbracht said.
Manly said he opposed the project for cost, health and environmental reasons, adding that “we need to be thinking about naturalizing our environment, not making more artificial environments.”
Mayor Leonard Krog said nothing he heard during the debate would make him want to cancel a project that is important to so many community members, and he criticized the health arguments made by other councillors.
“I’m not prepared to even consider for a moment what I will call the bogeyman of environmental concerns chasing people off a sports field…” he said. “If people don’t want to use this, I’ll be surprised, but I suspect they will vote with their feet.”
The committee voted 6-3 in favour of staff’s recommendation to increase the project budget and move ahead with building the fields this year. Manly, Brown and Geselbracht were opposed.
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editor@nanaimobulletin.com
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