Image: Dan Sharrers Aquatic Centre / Ownership of the Dan Sharrers Aquatic Centre (pictured) in Hope has been formally transferred from the District of Hope to the Fraser Valley Regional District.

By Mike Vanden Bosch

District of Hope

District of Hope transfers ownership of municipal aquatic centre

May 7, 2024 | 11:25 AM

HOPE — It’s not necessarily a routine transaction for a municipality to transfer ownership of one of its civic facilities to an outside organization.

But in this case, the District of Hope believes it makes sense for the Fraser Valley Regional District to accept formal ownership of one of the government agency’s recreational assets.

According to a news release, the District of Hope says it has transferred ownership of the Dan Sharrers Aquatic Centre to FVRD, which already oversees the operations of the entire Hope & Area Recreation Centre in which the aquatic centre is located, and owns the ice rink and conference centre.

The District contends rec centres, by nature, are inherently expensive to build and maintain.

“Therefore, to improve and gain efficiencies in providing for and operating the Centre, a proposal was made to harmonize ownership and operations,” the district said in a news release dated Thursday, May 2. “This proposal was duly considered and approved by both District Council and the FVRD Board of Directors.”

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In conjunction with the new ownership-operation model, an updated cost sharing agreement was introduced to achieve fairness in financial contributions, which can be changed at any time in the future as new financial realities emerge. The District of Hope will be expected to allocate a modest increase in its contributed share of funding, as a reflection of its greater population and property values compared to FVRD Electoral Area B (Spuzzum, Yale, Dogwood Valley, Laidlaw and the Sunshine Valley).

The District of Hope has also pledged to transfer a portion of its capital reserves to fund future infrastructure improvements, which the district says would have been spent anyways, to upgrade the facility. Similarly, the FVRD board has agreed to allot additional funds towards the aquatic facility to improve it.

The district says the new service model will ultimately improve the facility’s long-term capital management and maintenance through FVRD’s engineering resources and access to grant opportunities.

“Overall, this change will allow for more efficient and streamlined operation of the entire recreation facility by the level of government most responsible for the recreation function – the Region (FVRD),” the district noted in its statement.

Most importantly, the change will not adversely impact the ability of the public to recommend programming changes or affect access to the recreational facility, the district concluded.