The project at Confederation Park Community Centre was slated to start in Fall 2024. It now may be cancelled altogether. Here’s why.
Burnaby city council is considering a recommendation from staff to reconsider the redevelopment of a large community centre due, in part, to provincial legislation that changed how developers pay municipalities for amenities through the rezoning process.
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A $200-million project at Confederation Park Community Centre that had been slated to start in Fall 2024 was halted after city council in August began to look at how it could scale back the project.
Now, staff are seeking council’s approval to abandon it completely.
Provincial legislation implemented new rules for setting the bonus density and community infrastructure charges that developers pay to municipalities in return for permission to build a certain amount of floor space or number of residential housing units.
These new rules also set parameters for how fees collected for amenities can be used for new projects rather than to upgrade or replace existing facilities or the existing part of an expanded facility.
The city had originally been relying on a community benefit bonus reserve, but to comply with the new legislation, it switched to using an amenity community contribution fund, which does not have enough money to fully cover the cost.
The staff report to council prior to a meeting on Tuesday also said that scrapping the Confederation Park Community Centre project would allow a look at how the cost of building community recreation space could be better distributed to other parts of the city, especially at a time when new areas will be growing in population such as around the Brentwood Town Centre.
“While building a Recreation Community Centre to offer increased recreation and culture programs at the Confederation Park Sites would benefit the local community, there are advantages to deferring the project to align it with community needs, financial readiness, and strategic planning, ensuring a well-balanced distribution of recreation services across all of the city’s quadrants,” the staff report said.
The staff report said that unwinding the project requires terminating existing contracts, incurring fees and starting a new procurement process in the future as construction costs are expected to rise by four to seven per cent annually.
Staff presented an option to redesign the project and proceed with a smaller version of a community centre redevelopment at Confederation Park that would cost about $160 million, but even this would require borrowing funds to proceed. Staff added that given Brentwood Community Centre has also newly been approved, proceeding with the Confederation Park plan “risks an overdevelopment of services” in that area while other areas might have a more pressing need to see an increase.
There are different kinds of fees that developers pay to municipalities. “Development cost charges” are collected for hard infrastructure costs that must be funded as a community grows and more buildings are added and these are used to build and maintain sidewalks, bike paths, major storm sewers, water mains, fire halls, police stations, and recycling facilities.
“Amenity cost charges” are put toward projects such as community centres, libraries and other facilities for youth or seniors such as daycares and public squares.
Since the province is requiring cities to allow taller buildings near SkyTrain stations, Burnaby has less density to sell to developers through the rezoning process. The amenity cost charges will support part of the revenue that will be lost from this change, but the money in this fund is still growing.
“The timing of when the city will have accumulated sufficient funds is primarily dependent on receipt of revenues from development,” said the staff report.
Postmedia reached out to Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurly, but did not hear back before deadline.
In the past, provincial Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon has said B.C. has already provided Burnaby with $29 million for community amenities, and pointed out that the city’s own 2023 annual report cites it only raised around $62 million for amenities, which would be well below the $200-million potential cost of the Confederation Park Community Centre redevelopment. He has said this major gap existed before the provincial legislation came into being.
The Ministry of Housing did not reply to Postmedia’s request for comment.
With file from Alec Lazenby