VanPubTennis

November 12, 2009: The Park Board convened its Planning and Environmental Committee to consider amongst other things, a proposed phasing plan for the renewal of rinks, pools, community centres and related facilities over the next decade. Park Board staff made the case that consideration of any big projects beyond renewal of existing facilities were out of the question, given the budgetary constraints with which it had to work. Three community centres, Dunbar, Hastings, and Marpole have been long awaiting renewal, and those projects were given first priority for the city’s next capital plan. Commissioner Ian Robertson proposed that a feasibility study for indoor tennis be incorporated into feasibility studies budgeted for these three community centre upgrades. The Park Board Commissioners voted unanimously in favour of this motion.

It is not clear at this writing what exactly the reference to tennis within the feasibilty studies for the community centre upgrades will mean. But certainly, it seems that the only chance Park Board can give public indoor tennis, in the foreseeable future, is a possible association with renewal of one of these three community centres:

Hastings Community Centre
3096 East Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC V5K 2A3
604-718-6222
http://vancouver.ca/parks/cc/hastings

Dunbar Community Centre
4747 Dunbar Street
Vancouver, BC V6S 2H2
604-222-6060
http://dunbarcentre.ca

Marpole Oakridge Community Centre
990 59th Avenue West
Vancouver, BC V6P 1X9
604-257-8180
http://marpoleoakridge.org

This “Updates” entry may be amended when there is further clarification on how a study of feasibility for a 6 court indoor tennis facility is to be incorporated into the required preliminary work for community centre renewal.

November 4, 2009: The VIPTP Steering Committee met at the Kitsilano Community Centre to discuss the way forward in the light of the meeting between VIPTP representatives, Peter Jackson and Wayne Morris, with Piet Rutgers (PB Director of Planning and Operations) and Mark Vulliamy (PB Manager of Planning and Research), on Friday, October 30 (see below). Peter Jackson expressed his disappointment of the unwillingness of Park Board staffers to engage in any meaningful consultation with our group, and Mr. Rutgers refusal to contemplate any meaningful research to “identify and evaluate potential sites for a minimum 6 court facility”, as had been requested of him (for a second time), by the PB Planning and Environmental Committee on March 3, 2009.

The Steering Committee gave some consideration to the list of potential “convergence” sites given Peter and Wayne by Mark Vulliamy. It was noted that the list designated only sites where there are existing outdoor Park Board or Vancouver School Board courts. It suggested that only the covering of the existing courts was contemplated. Only one of the sites (Kitsilano High School, where there are 6 courts) were imagined to accommodate the construction of a 6 court public indoor tennis facility. And at this point in time, the possibility that the Vancouver School Board will undertake construction of an indoor tennis facility at Kits High is, at best, slight.

Peter and Wayne informed our steering group that Piet Rutgers will be advising the Park Board Commissioners to abandon any consideration of VIPTP at the upcoming Park Board Meeting of its Planning and Environmental Committee, on Thursday, November 12. The Steering Committee decided that present circumstances left us with no where to go but back the the Park Board Commissioners to present again the case for public indoor tennis and to send out a call for help doing that to all those on our e-mail newsletter list.

October 30, 2009: Representatives of the VIPTP Steering Committee, Peter Jackson and Wayne Morris, met with the top man at Park Board, Piet Rutgers (Director, Planning and Operations), and Mark Vulliamy (Manager of Planning and Research) at the Park Board Office. The meeting had been requested by our group, for the purpose of determining what progress had been made with regards to the Feasibility Study for the Vancouver Indoor Public Tennis Project, and what, if anything, we could do to expedite development of that report, which had originally been requested by the Park Board Commissioners to be delivered in the spring of 2009.

At the meeting Mark Vulliamy produced a list of twelve Park or School Board locations where existing outdoor courts could possibly be covered, and indoor tennis operation be integrated with an existing Park Board facility, or tennis facility construction might be added to existing upgrade obligations. The list also included another seven locations where Park Board, or the Vancouver School Board, had five or more outdoor courts. Click here for a PDF of that document (print out on legal sized paper, landscape aspect).

Piet Rutgers informed us that Park Board was struggling to manage its budget to make good on commitments to replace aging infrastructure. Unless a project such as VIPTP came with an outside source of funding, it will not be feasible for Park Board staff to consider it at all, at any location. So far as Piet Rutgers is concerned, the list from Mark Vulliamy is as much research into feasibility of VIPTP as we can expect. He will be reporting this view at the meeting of the Park Board Planning and Environment Committee on November 12, 2009. Please note that Mr. Rutger’s view may not be that of Vancouver’s Park Board Commissioners, and it is certainly not the view of the VIPTP Steering Committee.

July 1, 2009 (excerpted from VIPTP e-mailed newsletter): There is no Feasibility Study, as yet. Nevertheless, Park Board staff delivered a preliminary report at the Park Board’s Planning and Environment Committee Meeting of March 3, 2009. At that meeting Park Board Commissioners directed staff to further explore a proposal from the False Creek Community Association to cover the courts at their community centre, and also to “identify and evaluate potential sites for a minimum 6 court facility, either on park or VSB land, which could be served by an existing community centre.” (see http://vancouver.ca/parks/board/2009/plan090303/minutes.pdf)

Oddly, VIPTP speakers who attended that meeting cannot recall mention of the stipulation, shown in the minutes, that potential sites be served by an existing community centre. Nevertheless, that appears now to be one of the constraints for Park Board involvement with research into potential sites for an indoor public tennis centre. We cannot but wonder what that implies for the hope of having a public indoor facility in Vancouver similar to the Grant Connell Tennis Centre in North Van. In any case, research into the possibility of having covered courts associated with community centres is certainly welcome. After all, it is the indoor tennis courts associated with community centres in nearby municipalities (the Steveston Community Centre, and the Cameron Recreation Centre in Burnaby) that offer the best rates for usage, among all facilities in the lower mainland.

As to when we can expect see realised the Feasibility Study that had been hoped for this spring, we are assured that once Park Board staff have discharged their heavy commitments to current projects, and have had their annual vacations, a meeting with VIPTP representatives will be scheduled to discuss candidate sites. In other words, nothing much will happen until this fall.

March 3, 2009: Meeting of the Park Board Committee of Environment and Planning (Commissioners Jasper, Blyth, MacKinnon, and Robertson). The matter of indoor tennis was on the agenda at the behest of Park Board staff, who were presenting a preliminary report on the VIPTP Feasibility study, and seeking direction from the Commissioners whether or not to continue.

As well as representatives from our group, there was a delegation speaking for another indoor tennis project at the meeting. The False Creek Community Association was seeking Park Board support to put a building atop the two tennis courts and one multi-use court (basketball/tennis) that lie next to the False Creek Community Centre. Park Board staff are researching the feasibility of that project, as well as the VIPTP initiative. Mark Vulliamy (PB Manager of Planning and Research) gave the four PB Commissioners a slide presentation detailing his preliminary work on the VIPTP Feasibility Study. Also using a slide presentation, Peter Jackson restated the case for VIPTP, and its most desirable outcome, a 6-8 court indoor facility/tennis centre. The delegation for the False Creek Community Association made the pitch for their project. Various speakers from the audience spoke very forcefully in favour of VIPTP.

Following all that, chief Park Board staffer, Piet Rutgers, Director of Planning and Operations, surprised our group by asking the Commissioners to choose between the two initiatives. Further, he suggested the Commissioners direct him to proceed with study on the False Creek project, and not waste any more of staff time on the larger, more wide ranging (mostly because it seeks a location) study for the feasibility of a Grant Connell type facility. Happily, the Commissioners had by then come to understand that the demand for public indoor tennis in Vancouver is very great, and that two or three covered courts used for tennis and other activities at False Creek, would not satisfy the demand for public indoor tennis in Vancouver. The Commissioners directed Mr. Rutgers to have his staff carry on with the VIPTP Feasibility Study, to explore the possibility for a large public indoor tennis centre.

February 24, 2009: Steering committee met at the Kitsilano Community Centre. The group devoted its energies to helping review/edit/amend the Power Point presentation that was used at last July’s meeting of the Park Board Committee of the Whole, where attending Commissioners voted unanimously in favour of asking Park Board staff to work with our group to develop a feasibility study. Our slide show was revisited in anticipation of a meeting of the Park Board Planning and Environment Committee, on Tuesday, March 3. The Vancouver Indoor Public Tennis Project has been placed on the agenda of that meeting by Park Board staff. They have assessed that the feasibility study requested last July will be more wide ranging, and hence more costly, than anticipated, and will be asking if the Park Board Commissioners are willing to see money allocated to go ahead with it. Peter Jackson will therefore be making a presentation using the slide show, reworked to discard elements not relevant to the point we are at with the project currently. It was thought that it would be a great help if concerned tennis players presented themselves at the Park Board Committee Meeting to speak to the benefits of the VIPTP as they see them personally. Likewise it would help for as many people as possible to contact the various Park Board Commissioners to convey their belief in the value of this project.

All other agenda items for the evening were dropped, in order to work on the slide presentation. It was noted that if the Park Board Planning and Environment Committee decided that no further expenditure go into the feasibility study, the VIPTP will be dead in the water for the immediate future.

January 15, 2009: Meeting convened at the Kits Community Centre. Peter Jackson filled the group in on some preliminary discussion with Park Board staff on the nature of the feasibility study which we hope will be undertaken soon. Turns out that the study we seek will be broad ranging enough as to require Park Board staff to find extra budget monies to conduct it. That is because we are not approaching PB with a plan for a tennis facility at a specific site (which could be quickly looked at and deemed feasible or not), but rather wishing that PB look at various possible locations and structural configurations, with our group providing knowledge of the local tennis scene, and some research already done, to help guide the effort. There is a meeting with Park Board staff scheduled for the end of this month, which should yield info on how great a sum will be required, and what steps must be taken to get it.

Mention was made of the VIPTP newsletter e-mailing list, and the fact that it has ceased to grow, stuck for weeks at 266 addresses. No doubt Christmas and New Years explains the stall to some degree. Nevertheless, since public court tennis players all endorse the project when in conversation about it, the number of e-mail newsletter subscribers we have thus far collected seem far below the number of people who actually would like to see a public indoor tennis facility constructed. It was resolved among committee members to renew personal efforts to encourage tennis players to lend their voices in support of the VIPTP, and perhaps note the e-mail address of new subscribers themselves, rather than hope new supporters send an e-mail to whanem@gmail.com

Some discussion took place regarding the public outdoor courts. Doug Pirozek of PB was at the meeting to try to provide info on the discrepancy between recent Park Board planned expenditures, and recent actual expenditure, on court repair and refurbishment. There was little light shed on the matter. Doug informed us that Park Board staff have no interest in our committee acting as an advisory body to guide expenditures on repair and refurbishment of the outdoor courts.

See 2008 for record of earlier Updates.