Any large municipal project is likely to be controversial, but the City of Victoria seems to have more than its share of arguments over big-ticket items.
Despite an earnest desire to get it right, the Crystal Pool replacement project has councillors scrambling to mollify residents who say their priorities got short shrift.
After two years of planning and $2 million already spent, the city decided it is too far down the road to move the entire building, but maybe it can do some other things that would make the neighbours happy. Or at least less angry.
Council decided to go ahead with putting the $69.4-million pool complex in the southwest corner of Central Park, beside the existing facility. Neighbours, who say they weren’t properly consulted in the early days, want to save the park and put the pool in the parking lot beside the Victoria Curling Club.
The city is amenable to that idea — or would have been if things weren’t so far along. Unfortunately, moving the pool now would delay it by eight to 10 months, cost $200,000 more and probably miss the January deadlines for funding from the federal and provincial governments. Missing those deadlines would mean borrowing more money.
If it’s too late to move the pool, it might not be too late to make better use of the parking lot. The city is considering putting social housing, a community centre and child care in the lot, with parking underground.
It might be the best councillors can do at this point.
