Sarnia is working on a policy to make city sports fields more broadly available for community use.
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“They’re publicly funded spaces,” city recreation co-ordinator Krissy Glavin said. “We want to ensure we have enough spaces for the activities people are looking to do.”
Details of the policy are expected in late March or early April before it goes for public input, she said.
The pending policy was announced as lease renegotiations were recently approved by city council for a two-hectare public school board land parcel near Mike Weir Park that’s home to the city’s only cricket pitch.
The Sarnia Cricket Club has had exclusive free access to the site 16 weeks out of the year in a sub-lease agreement with the city dating back to 1987, city officials reported.
That will change with the new lease agreement between the Lambton Kent District school board and the municipality, and “similar anomalies that do not provide for broad community use” will be reviewed, the council decision reads.
A staff report notes the estimated yearly revenue loss by not charging the club fees has been nearly $7,700.
AT similar no-pay agreement with Sarnia Girls Soccer for exclusive Lottie Neely Park use since 2001 also means missing out on fees, while the city still pays for grass cutting, line painting and site maintenance costs, officials have said. That agreement, up for renewal in 2025, could also be renegotiated as part of a potential indoor multi-use recreation facility proposal.
“We’re trying to have a better understanding of all of that,” Glavin said about sports-field use agreements.
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The cricket club, which had 40 members in 2021 and played in two leagues based in Waterloo and London last season to accommodate demand, is disappointed they weren’t involved in talks about ending their exclusive access, club president Thiru Kannan said.
The club played in Germain Park in the 1970s before moving to Blackwell Park and eventually the Mike Weir Park-adjacent land parcel in the 1980s, he said.
The club has since paid to install a concrete pitch there, and pays for a $2,000 mat needed for matches that’s replaced every couple of years, he said. He argued that municipalities that charge for field use should also be investing in their upkeep, noting artificial turf installations in other communities.
The city to date has been cutting grass at the pitch, he said.
A change room at the site was demolished in 2019 and a new pavilion with storage space and viewing area was built using city funds, the city report says, noting the new building is located on city property, next to the school board property.
“We’ve always worked with other people and we have shared the facility,” Kannan said. “The main thing is we all strongly believe we should have been at the table.”
Glavin said she couldn’t speak to why there wasn’t more consultation.
In September, Sarnia announced Lambton College’s Sarnia Civic Lab was researching cricket demand in the city to see if Sarnia needed to invest in creating more pitches.
There’s been increased use of baseball diamonds for pick-up games, but the pitch near Mike Weir Park is the only space suitable for hard ball matches, Kannan said.
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User groups have also been meeting virtually since last June to gauge usage at city soccer fields and baseball diamonds, including at artificial turf field Norm Perry Park, recreation superintendent Shelley Kern said in September.
Kannan said the cricket club was not part of those working group discussions.
The hope is to determine scheduling and field inventory needs by cataloging who is using the fields, when those facilities are being used, and how much growth they’re expected to see in the coming years, Kern has said.
When the cricket demand research project is expected to finish isn’t clear, but community engagement is still planned, including with the cricket club, Glavin said.