Surrey councillors voted 5-4 in favour of the city’s draft capital plan, it now goes to a final vote next week — and it includes a postponement of the Cloverdale Ice Complex that has left some council members and hockey parents unhappy.
Coun. Steven Pettigrew, Brenda Locke, Jack Hundial and Linda Annis voted against the plan.
Coverage of Cloverdale on Globalnews.ca:
Coun. Locke said significant money has already been spent on the facility.
“It has been promised to that community for a very long time, it has already broken ground and there’s a big sign that welcomes the arena so that makes it equally difficult to turn it down,” she said.
There were two hours of public comment — mostly from hockey parents — before the vote took place.
Concerned parent Shannon Wise said an ice rink would help improve public safety.
“You say you want to make Surrey a safe place again and part of that should include providing spaces where our community can grow, gather and be healthy both in body and in mind,” she said.
Mayor Doug McCallum told the packed council chambers that he agreed the rinks are needed but said it’s a question of when and how.
“We’re going to look at the prospect of only building one rink at a time. In other words, build one first fairly quickly and then once it’s up and running look at building the second one a few years behind it,” he said.
McCallum suggested that a private company build the rinks with the city providing the land.
Mike Bola, a hockey dad and president of the Cloverdale Community Association, thinks this is a bad idea.
“It’s going to drive up cost of registration for hockey parents,” he said. “The whole idea is to make hockey cheaper. Not everybody’s going to like hockey or skating but those who do, we should reduce the cost to allow them to participate.”
Some work had already started on the Cloverdale rinks on the fairgrounds but crews ran into land stability issues earlier this year.
Pile driving and the cost of steel have driven up the price, McCallum said.
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