Moncton to explore potential sites for new aquatics centre

Moncton council took an initial step Monday toward building an indoor pool over the coming years, voting for city staff to explore potential locations and partnership models for an aquatics centre. 

The vote came after councillors were handed a city-commissioned study by Sierra Planning and Management Inc. examining the feasibility of new indoor or outdoor pools over the coming decade.

The Toronto firm used population, the number of existing pools in the region, as well as their use, to determine Moncton will need an aquatics centre within 10 years. 

"So the message here is that, should the City of Moncton wish to get into the direct provision of aquatics, there is a need to plan for a new pool," Jon Hack, a director with the company, told councillors Monday.

If the city's growth continues the need rises to two aquatics centres by 2046, Hack said.

Jocelyn Cohoon, Moncton's general manager of community services, said council will be asked to include money in future budgets for further planning. 

"We know these — particularly the indoor multi-use facility, and the outdoor as well — they're costly items and they're certainly complicated projects," Cohoon said in an interview about the next steps. 

"We know with the experience of our two outdoor pools that we were back and forth to council a number of times, and that certainly will happen in this case."

The study stemmed from the city's recreation master plan approved earlier this year, which recommended an analysis of an aquatics centre.

There are no municipality owned indoor pools in the city. There is a publicly accessible pool at the downtown YMCA and limited access to a pool at Université de Moncton CEPS. 

Dieppe has its own aquatics centre, while Riverview is planning a recreation centre with a pool that will replace an existing indoor pool.

The consultant's report says the city should try to partner with U de M as it considers replacing its pool in the coming years so that the number of existing pools is maintained.

The report also suggests the city needs another outdoor pool in the northwest. It has two municipally owned outdoor pools that open in the summer. One is in Centennial Park and the other is in the east end near downtown.

The report says the proposed pool should be larger than the east end pool, but smaller than the one in Centennial Park.