In the T&T today that the fabled North End Community Centre has been put off for yet another year (this is about the fifth time the centre has been put off for a year, and this is after years of lobbying effort before that!!)
The reason ostensibly is that the city and the YMCA (who will be operating the facility as a satellite of the YMCA on Vaughan Harvey) still haven't come to an agreement, although the city spokesman was confident that an agreement will be reached very shortly.
Still, we are distressingly early in the process. Without an operating agreement, the YMCA will not come up with a final plan of what will be included in the centre (some basics have however been decided like community meeting space, community gardens, indoor walking track, indoor splash pad). Without knowing what services will ultimately be included, plans and renders can't be drawn up. Without the renders, the cost of the centre cannot be estimated. Without cost estimates, the city can't make requests to the other levels of government for funding. Without funding in place, actual construction plans cannot be developed. As such, even if things progress optimally, I'm willing to bet it'll be at least five years before the centre opens.
In addition to the centre itself, a lot of supportive infrastructure has to be built. Although the centre was originally to have been built in behind Evergreen Park School, the plan is now to build the centre on Twin Oaks next to Ecole le Sommet. The ostensible reasons being that Twin Oaks will be a main street in the neighbourhood, and that the seven acre site gives lots of room for growth. It should be noted however that this section of Twin Oaks has yet to be built, and yet to be connected to the Ryan/Horsman roundabout. There will need to be millions of dollars of work here to even get to the point where the community centre could be built.
There are still many things that could go wrong in this process........
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