Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) directors are looking at a possible bill of $300,000 to replace the hot tub at the Gibsons and District Aquatic Facility, which is currently in disrepair and closed to the public.
In a staff report to directors, manager of recreation services Bruce Bauman suggested $50,000 was needed to develop a scope of work for the hot tub replacement and $250,000 was needed for the actual replacement.
The current hot tub, which was installed in 1992, isn’t a commercial model. During this year’s fall maintenance of the hot tub, staff found the fibreglass was delaminating from below. Upon inspection by professionals, the hot tub was deemed “inoperable and unrepairable” and was closed to pool users.
The main issue upping the estimated replacement cost, Bauman said, is the fact the current hot tub doesn’t meet BC Pool Operation Guidelines.
“In discussions with professionals, they have indicated that it is not just a simple replacement of the hot tub because the hot tub in its present form and present location is contrary to the operational guidelines that govern the operation of aquatic centres. It doesn’t have the clearances around it and so it would need to be completely removed and potentially even the little round pool that’s beside it would need to be removed as well,” Bauman said.
“So it’s not just a simple in and out. It’s much more complex and the work is hidden. You don’t know what you have until you get there. So the trepidation with respect to numbers is that we don’t know. It’s the plumbing and everything else that needs to tie in, so it could very quickly grow.”
He said that once the project is tendered, staff would have a better understanding of what the final costs could be.
“But at this point [$300,000] is where it’s at,” Bauman said.
Gibsons director Silas White said the figure was “shocking” but he also noted the hot tub topic was a “very hot issue” in Gibsons.
“I can’t go anywhere in Gibsons without this being brought up by seniors and by people who care for seniors and spend a lot of time with seniors,” White said.
Elphinstone director Lorne Lewis said the day before the meeting was “the first day in a long time I haven’t had a phone call about the hot tub,” noting it was used regularly as a form of therapy by seniors and those recovering from health issues in the area.
West Howe Sound director Ian Winn suggested if the community knew about the price tag associated with replacing the hot tub, it could change people’s minds about the need. White, however, disagreed.
“This is one of those services that is so important to some people that you could tell them it’s going to cost $3 million and they’re going to say ‘well, it’s the most important thing that the SCRD provides to me in my life, so of course do it.’ It’s a bigger question of other taxpayers, whether it’s justified to everybody else,” White said.
Directors wanted more information and a public meeting before moving forward with any decisions and asked that a staff report come to a January 2016 meeting with further usage data and “contextual historical reports.”
SCRD staff will also set up a public information meeting in the new year to talk about costs associated with the hot tub replacement project, as well as a possible five-month closure of the Gibsons and District Aquatic Facility to complete it.
“I think that’s really important that [the public information meeting] happen soon, because as I mentioned earlier, this is the talk of the town and I think as director Winn has mentioned, people do need to know more about this,” White added.
