By Jennifer Tryon
City council has drowned any hopes Centretown residents had of a new Plant Pool until the turn of the millennium.
At a city council meeting held Jan. 21 the Plant Pool was on a long list of community services that city treasurer, Mona Monkman, recommended not be considered for funding until 2004.
The Plant Pool, at the corner of Somerset and Preston Streets has been closed since December 1996, when it was deemed structurally unsafe.
Residents of the area have been lobbying to have it reopened since the closing.
In May, the city will make its final decision as to what will receive funding, when the final budget is drafted. But Coun. Elisabeth Arnold says the recommendations (of the city treasurer) are usually incorporated into the budget.
“So this means we have to do something else to find funding.”
Arnold says it will cost the city $6 million to do a bare-bones restoration the building and that the city can’t afford of the restoration without reneging on their promise not to raise taxes.
“It’s a double-edged sword, we can’t just leave the building sit there.” says Arnold.
“Obviously I am disappointed (with the decision), but the best thing we can do now is have a public participation process. A lot can happen through February, March and April. I am going to continue to fight.”
A public participation process means the community should be mobilizing support for the reopening of the pool.
Arnold suggests the community is going to have to keep fighting to save the pool.
Sally Rutherford, a Centretown resident, has been doing just that.
“This (recommendation) is not good news but I’m not giving up. (Mayor) Jim Watson said at the meeting that there may be alternatives to municipal funding, and we’re looking into that.”
Rutherford says she is optimistic, but admits fund-raising is not going to be easy.
“It’s going to be difficult to leverage (corporate) funds because no one is going to want to support a project that won’t take place for another seven or 10 years.”
The community is not only upset because it’s losing a recreation centre. The pool has historical significance.
The Plant Pool was Ottawa’s first public pool and its two cement doorways are heritage sites.
“We just can’t leave it sit there,” says Peter Harris, executive director of the Preston Street Business Improvement Area.
“It’s making the street look like a slum. We have Dow’s Lake at one end, which is beautiful, and then this old falling-apart building at the other. There is nothing beautiful about old brick and dirty windows.”
Harris recommends that all but the cement doorways of the building be torn down. Then, once funding is available, the doorways can be incorporated into the new recreation centre’s structure.
Rutherford and Arnold are meeting on April 2 to discuss what’s next for the pool.
“Until then, no final decision will be made,” says Rutherford. “Once we have the meeting we will know where we stand.”
The pool underwent renovations to the deck and the change room in 1983, but has not seen structural changes since 1956.
The pool was named after Frank H. Plant, Ottawa mayor between 1921 and 1923 and again in 1930.
A native of London, Ont., Plant participated in and promoted sports in Ottawa throughout his adult life. He died in 1952.
The pool was built in 1922 and was a favorite gathering place for the Preston-area neighborhood.