Chestermere City Council has directed city staff to explore the possibility of purchasing the Chestermere Regional Recreation Centre (CRRC) lands.
“The City of Chestermere sees significant benefits in owning these lands,” said Mayor Marshall Chalmers.
“This is about Chestermere owning, and being able to provide recreation, and recreation amenities to our community,” he said.
By possibly purchasing the land, the city will be able to facilitate effective long-range planning for recreational amenities, along with developing additional recreational opportunities for the community.
The primary recreational facility, the Chestermere Regional Community Association (CRCA), currently has a 50-year renewable less with Rocky View County (RVC), who holds ownership of the land.
Chestermere City Council and staff have been in communication with the CRCA, and RVC to discuss the remediation of structural issues of the beams and columns in the red rink.
“Together, we’re working on an action plan, and that includes Chestermere possibly becoming the owners of the land,” Chalmers said.
“The building is aging, but our responsibility is to provide recreation to our community. We as council are looking at the best ways to do that,” Chalmers said.
Adding, “Many community members have been advocating to keep the facility open and operational. We see the city’s involvement as a benefit to the current and future community members who will ultimately be able to continue enjoying the facility and its programming.”
The city is a part of studies to identify what the community would like to have for recreation, what opportunities there are, and what types of facilities are needed.
“We have short-term planning and long-range planning going on,” Chalmers added. “There is a lot of work going on behind the scenes to ensure that we’re positioning ourselves to provide recreation to the community, both short term and long term.”
Although the specific details will be worked out through the negotiation process, Chalmers doesn’t expect there to be any extreme changes to the CRCA, if the city does purchase the land.
“The land is owned as public services with the condition that the property is used for recreational purposes,” Chalmers said.
Moving forward, City of Chestermere staff are researching the purchasing options with the city’s legal counsel support.
“We are committed to Council’s vision to create an amazing quality of life for residents by exploring more recreation opportunities for the community,” said Chalmers.
“Our intention is to offer fair value to RVC for the purchase of these lands,” Chalmers added. “My commitment during the election was to do everything reasonable to end the current challenges faced by having another municipality own recreation land in our city, which has impacted the CRCA and the recreational services they provide.”
