In case you missed it, during last Monday’s council meeting there was a discussion regarding whether to increase the fees related to parks and recreation amenities.

The suggested increase came after city staff looked at rates in nearby cities, while also considering New West’s historical practice of a 0-5% increase upticks in rates. That means between its practice of using the 0-5% increase, it is also able to take into consideration factors like:

• Market values

• Inflation

• Collective agreement increases

• Partial cost recovery

• Minor sports discount formulas

• Operational costs

• Budget targets

“The department reviews its fees and charges and makes recommendations for adjustments annually,” the report reads. “By adjusting fees marginally each year, the public is not subjected to large increases at any given time.”

When you first look at the percentages, according to staff, they may seem much bigger on paper. The report discusses why that may not quite be the case.

The rates

During the last council meeting on Monday night, staff outlined the increases as follows:

• Rentals (indoor multi-purpose spaces): 9%

• Rentals (outdoor pools/arenas): 2%

• Rentals (indoor pool lanes): 24%

• Rentals (sports fields): 4%

• Registered programs: 5%

• Admissions: 12%

• Active passes: 12%

• Off-site works services tree fee: 10%

It’s worth noting some situations may not result in a charge. As an example, the New West Youth Group would, for a meeting, be billed $0 as that’s been the grandfathered rate. If the space was being used for anything else outside of a meeting, then they’d be charged a rate based on the purpose of the use of the space.

Staff say that the reason for these rates is to keep costs competitive among other local centres that offer similar services. In addition, the city needs to keep up with the costs of təməsew̓txʷ, billed by staff as a “new state-of-the-art multi-purpose aquatic and community centre.”

What do the rate changes look like?

Taking a look at admissions, and using the chart as provided on page 144 of Monday night’s report to council, the fees look to have gone up anywhere from $0 to $0.62, depending on the category. The $0.62 increase in the single admission amount is for an adult between the ages of 19 to 64.

The city also offers Active 10 and Active 30 memberships, meaning you can drop in to a centre for 10 and 30 visits, respectively. For an adult, an Active 10 pass is going up by $4.75; for an Active 30 the increase is $6.17.

The Active 365 pass will also see an increase across all categories. However, staff on Monday evening said patrons could cancel their membership at any time, no strings attached, and sign up again if they wanted to go back to the yearly membership option. Adult fees for the 12-month membership are set to go up by $49.50—so a 12-month pass would cost $565.7. That works out to about $47.14 monthly for an annual commitment.

The fees—once all the municipal logistics are taken care of—are set to be implemented in September.

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