Taking the plunge: Victorians vote Yes to a new Crystal Pool

It’s taken a decade of debate and the cost has climbed but Victorians are getting a new Crystal Pool.

In a clear decision, 58.7% of voters decided to empower the city to borrow $160+ million to replace the 54-year-old facility on Quadra.

“I’m thrilled,” said Mayor Marianne Alto. “It’s nice to get a definitive answer.”

In an equally decisive—though not equally binding—result, 60.6% of voting Victoria residents opted to have it built in the exact location where the declining structure sits.  That means the city will need to borrow an estimated $162.2 million.

“My hope with everyone was that [the result] would be definitive,” Alto said. “The message is clear, the outcome is pretty solid.”

Polls closed at 8pm Saturday and it took until just past 10pm for all memory cards to be downloaded from the 36 Dominion Voting machines, 30 of which were placed in the city’s 10 voting places while the other six handled the advanced polls. The tabulations were done in the council chamber at City Hall, where the mayor and a handful of councillors visited. There was a representation of the Yes side, but there was no No representation.

“I'm extremely happy with the outcome,” said Coun. Matt Dell, who has been advocating for a new pool for almost two decades.

Dell moved to Victoria from the South Okanagan roughly 20 years ago and his first job here was as a lifeguard at Crystal Pool in the early 2000s. He says the facility needed a rebuild back then.

“I saw it every single day, with people who couldn't access family change rooms, with people with accessibility needs who couldn't access the change rooms, with the pool that had mildew and air ventilation issues—it was a constant struggle to maintain that pool.”

Background work on building a new pool began in 2016 and progressed to the stage of consulting the public on a proposal that at the time would have cost $69.4 million. But talks dragged and the project was broadsided by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which kicked the idea to the curb.

Consider it no longer curbside.

“People want this new pool,” said Dell. “That's what I've been hearing in the community. That's what I was elected to do.”

Renderings via HCMA Architecture + Design

Total voter turnout for the Crystal Pool referendum was 15,547 or 21.18% of the 73,409 registered voters, which is in keeping with BC political statistics. Generally, referendums draw about half as many voters as a civic election.

Alto described Saturday’s turnout (in addition to early voters and those who sent ballots through the mail) as “decent.”

“For a referendum that is not attached to a regular civic election, that's actually fairly high,” she said.

North option favoured over South

Residents were asked whether they wanted to see the city borrow up to $168.9 million to build a new facility and if so, whether it should be constructed on the site of the current structure in an area dubbed Central Park North or have it constructed just next door at Central Park South, where basketball and tennis courts currently sit.

Of the 12,771 who voted for the city to pony up for a loan to build a new pool, 7,703 sided to have it built on Central Park North, while 5,014 favoured the South side.

Central Park North footprint. Courtesy City of Victoria

Coun. Jeremy Caradonna opined the North received such strong support because it mitigated some of their concerns with the project and for the same reason, he speculated some who voted No may take solace in the North's victory.

“At the very least, [they] are less unhappy with North because it means a lot fewer trees are cut down,” he said, about trees in that playing field area that would have had to be chopped down in the South plan.

“There's not the interrupted service to the basketball court in the playground, right? So I think, on balance, this is the best possible outcome.”

Central Park South footprint. Courtesy City of Victoria

That outcome makes for a slightly shorter total construction timeframe—although it’s still in the 4-5-year range—and it means the current pool will be shut down earlier and then knocked down, which will leave denizens of pool users looking for wetter pastures. However, the pool itself will open later under the North plan, because the existing facility needs 21 months of prep time before construction can start.

“I personally would like to have a conversation with the rest of [the] council about talking to BC Transit, about potentially setting up a shuttle service to other rec centres,” Caradonna said.

“Because there's a lot of people who walk there every day.”

The total project budget for the new complex is $209.2 million, $6.7 million less than the South proposal.

What happens next

The city has pledged to spend $47 million from its reserve funds and has its eye on a possible $25 million federal loan that was contingent on a favourable referendum outcome.

Alto said the next step in that process would be confirming the application and ascertaining whether there are any changes to it. She added she didn’t know whether a looming federal election would have an impact. Alto also said the city would consider knocking on the BC legislature's door to seek funding.

“I will say that for something like this in the capital city, I would be very optimistic that the provincial government would make a contribution,” she said. “We have not had those discussions yet, let me be clear, but we certainly will be.”

Comparative North vs. South timelines via City of Victoria

The Yes decision is binding, which means the city will go ahead with the project. The selection of the site is not binding. But the council would have to be hit with some ground-changing news to not rubber stamp the public's North preference, as emphatic as it was.

The city projected a 61-month start-to-finish timeline with that year and a half of preparation before an eight-month teardown, but Alto could not give a ballpark estimate for when shovels would hit the ground.

“We have a lot of work to do, around funding, around applications, around doing the next phase of the design work,” the mayor said.

“It would be premature for me to give you any type of date or timeline.”

Demolition is expected to take eight months and construction on the replacement structure would follow.

The case for a new Crystal

Campaigning on the slogan “It’s about time!”, the Yes side promulgated all aspects of the aging pool.

Supporters, including many in the swimming community, contended that the current pool was well past its prime and nearing its expiry date. So much so, the city warned, that even in the event of a Yes victory and a decision to build in Central Park South—which would have enabled the current pool to remain open during the first part of construction—there was a high probability of a massive systems failure that would force the pool’s closure at any time.

Yes supporters argued that many of the pool’s systems are “beyond their useful life, and it's getting more challenging to maintain the facility and to source replacement parts” as Derrick Newman, the city’s director of parks, recreation, and facilities told CBC.

The failing natatorium opened in 1971. A 2017 study commissioned by the city determined that retrofitting it would cost about the same as building a new one due to the work needed to meet seismic, energy-efficiency, and accessibility standards. The building’s two large dome skylights have component issues and the pool’s drainage system is in dire need of an overhaul/replacement, the report said.

The current facility. Photo: Mark Brennae / Capital Daily

The current facility as viewed from Quadra. Photo: Robyn Bell / Capital Daily

The No side warned of cost overruns, citing how the Johnson Street Bridge project went 67% over budget and landed at a final price tag of $105 million even though the “fixed” cost had been $63 million. The Yes supporters, in return, pointed to the city’s new downtown fire hall. That 12-storey, mixed-use development, home to the fire department’s new headquarters and 130 units of affordable housing on Johnson opened in 2023 and came in on time and budget.

“This is about as big as it gets for the city,” said Dell who believes it supersedes the Johnson Street Bridge project and the construction of the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre, which opened in 2005.

“This is, this is a meaningful quality of life improvement for residents,” he said.

Dell believes a lot of the No voters still wanted a pool—-they just wanted a smaller, cheaper one.

Yes proponents, including Let’s Get Crystal Clear also pointed to the importance of a pool in the community for seniors, and for the health and wellness of those who depend on it.

Finess facility rendering (HCM

The city said with a contingency of about 30% built-in, the proposed pool project would come in on budget.

The No side campaigned primarily on the straightforward notion that the cost was too high. It argued that the projected average annual tax burden of between $232 and $240 for residents and between $596 and $620 annually for businesses for 20 years was too steep. It said the city’s pledge to use $47 million from its reserve funds would only drain the reserve and leave taxpayers on the hook to backfill it.

What we're getting in the new facility

The current pool features an eight-lane, 50-metre pool, with a water slide, hot tub, steam, and sauna, along with multi-purpose fitness spaces, the Fit-Pit weight room, and a fitness circuit which were not original to the building.

The proposal calls for a 50-metre pool with amenities such as a leisure pool with 25-metre warm-up lanes and a lazy river; two hot pools; sauna and steam room; seating and viewing areas; and universal accessibility—something that is sorely missing at the current location.

Away from the pool would be a large fitness studio, multi-purpose rooms for sports, dance, and arts; community gathering spaces; universal washroom and changing room options. Outside would be expanded parking—underground, if the Central Park South site had been selected—including EV charging options and spots for bicycles.

The No side considered the plans too extravagant. The Yes side said the proposal is no Cadillac and has fewer bells and whistles than it could have.

Rendering of the proposed facility

When confronted on the issue of the carbon footprint—the city has long called the Crystal Pool complex its largest emitter of greenhouse gases—the No side countered that a new smaller pool would reduce carbon emissions even more. But it never explained how, where, and with whose money that smaller pool would be built. Pool proponents consistently pointed to the fact that the last time the project was delayed, the cost tripled. A revised plan risked losing to inflation whatever savings it gained by reducing the facility's scale.

The leadup to the referendum was filled with mistrust and even peppered with high drama as opposing Yes and No sides tried to sway voters’ decisions.

It got to the point where one councillor—Caradonna— had to apologize for calling another—Stephen Hammond—a liar during a council meeting dispute over the city’s communications strategy to inform the electorate about the referendum. Government lawyers also pursued the Vote Yes campaign over the use of a Hammond quote in their materials.

“I wish to retract my expression that Coun. Hammond is a liar, Caradonna said two weeks after his barb landed.

“He is not. I think it’s important that we all comport ourselves with respect and decorum, and in that debate, I fell short of my own expectations. For that, I apologize,” he said.

Given the clear mandate, it would appear the city has been allowed to move forward to build a new facility with the backing of a majority of its residents.

“I think that this outcome will actually build a lot of consensus in the community,” Caradonna said.

Dell, the one-time Crystal Pool lifeguard, called it "a pretty exciting day" for the city.

"Like life just got better in Victoria.”