Burnaby cancels Confederation Park redevelopment

After a change to provincial legislation and an ensuing lack of funds, Burnaby city council has voted to abandon its plans to expand the Confederation Park Community Centre.

In a council meeting on Tuesday, staff on the project recommended cancelling the project until there is an increased demand to enhance recreation services in the city’s northwest quadrant’s neighbourhoods.

Coun. Pietro Calendino says he’s disappointed with having to abandon the project.

“We’ve been planning for 12 years and the community had been prepped. They had been consulted. They were waiting for a new community center there. And I wanted to make sure that something would be constructed there,” Calendino told 1130 NewsRadio.

The project was set to begin construction in the fall of 2024, but new provincial legislation changed the way cities collect money from developers The city then deferred the project in August last year after the province introduced the Amenity Cost Charges (ACCs) funding tool.

At the time, the City of Burnaby said the new ACC fees would take years to accumulate, and could only be used for a small portion of the project, according to provincial rules.

In the report presented on Tuesday, city staff said the approval of abandoning the project would facilitate a more balanced distribution of usable community recreation space to other areas of the city that need additional space.

However, abandoning the project comes with its own problems.

“Implementing this option would require terminating existing contracts, incurring associated fees, and initiating a new procurement process in the future when needed, with construction costs expected to rise by 4-7% annually,” the staff report explained.

“Should the current Confederation Park Community Centre (CPCC) project be abandoned, additional costs may be incurred to terminate existing open contracts. Staff will review the termination clauses of the contracts and assess the best possible outcome for the City,” staff added.

Calendino says he was hoping the city would revise and adapt the project with the new funding model rather than abandon it entirely.

“I proposed based on many emails that I got that I didn’t want a full-blown large community center; that we could use the space we have there to just put a gym, a few community rooms, and the fitness centre. We do have a senior centre and a pool there, and the senior centre would be fine for now with a little bit of refurbishing,” Calendino said.

In cancelling the Confederation Park project, the city says they’ll continue with a number of ongoing projects, including a replacement of the Burnaby RCMP detachment.