Nobody likes their recreational opportunities more than Canmore residents.
Blessed with facilities like the Canmore Nordic Centre, Rec Centre and Elevation Place and numerous outdoor pursuits in all seasons – Canmorites have the opportunity to recreate unlike most other small communities.
But with all these recreational opportunities available, how does the municipality plan for the future of recreation for the community?
That is a question consultants with RC Strategies have been tasked with answering as part of developing a Recreation Master Plan for the community.
RC Strategies partner Rob Parks said every community is different, so to draft a master plan for Canmore, first the consultants must understand this one. While that involves research and assessment of facilities, it also means they will look for input from the public at the beginning part of the process.
“We will be surveying community organizations tied to recreation,” Parks added. “When I say recreation, it is a broad term, but it relates to activities people would do in their leisure time.
“It is not a sport focus.”
He said the public engagement process, which has already begun, needs to be as broad as possible and include all interest groups and age groups.
“We are hoping to have most of that consultation done this calendar year, so we are putting the pedal to the metal,” Parks said. “We will take all of that information from the consultations and make head and tails of it and we will come up with draft recommendations.”
Manager of recreation Jim Younker has established a committee to help the consultants through the process, and it will work with RC Strategies on whether the draft recommendations reflect the community’s interests.
“The last master plan was done in 2005 and it was largely project focused,” Younker said. “It had a list of projects the Town should undertake, so it is now out of date. The Town has made a leap forward from a recreation perspective with Elevation Place and the conversion of space at the Rec Centre.
“This is really a logical pausing point to ask what does recreation look like in the next 20 years?”
He said while facilities and infrastructure are important for recreation, programming is also a key factor and the master plan will look at how to better improve that service delivery.
The plan will also step outside the box and look at recreation from a regional perspective, the public and private sectors.
“We want to look at that partnership with the private sector to deliver a community-wide spectrum of recreational opportunities,” Younker said. “We are looking Bow Valley-wide as far as providing facilities and programming.”
He pointed to the fact that certain divisions of minor hockey in Canmore and Banff integrated as an example of how a regional approach to recreation can be successful and deliver the maximum benefit from facilities in each town.
Younker said it is key that any additional recreation projects continue to be responsive to the needs of the community and the financial reality of the town, as well as the impact of tourism.
Go to www.canmore.ca to provide feedback for the master plan.
