Tofino’s pickleball community is hoping the district will let them serve up their expertise to avoid conflicts with other users at new courts soon to undergo construction at the town’s Village Green.
A $1.7 million project to upgrade the Village Green and replace a water main on Neill Street received unanimous early budget approval by Tofino’s municipal council during their Jan. 24 regular meeting.
The district’s Director of Infrastructure and Public Works Aaron Rodgers explained the water main replacement and Village Green upgrades are being done in tandem as they are in the same area and combining them will reduce costs.
He said a 2012 Water Capital Plan called for the replacement of “the ageing Asbestos concrete water main on Neill Street” and a 2022 condition assessment determined the tennis court surfacing was being “undermined by poor, non-homogenous subsurface materials” and required a complete replacement.
He added a sidewalk would be added to connect Third Street to Second Street and new, “more formalized” parking would increase pedestrian and cyclist safety.
“The improved parking should make the street a lot safer than it is currently where we have cars and pedestrians crossing paths quite often and it can be a bit of a dangerous area,” he said.
He said the project will improve the safety and experience for users of the town’s only public tennis and pickleball courts, reduce the risks of infrastructure failure and maintenance expenses, improve parking around the Village Green and improve accessibility to the downtown playground and overall pedestrian network.
The roughly $1.7 million project will be funded with about $365,300 of RMI funding as well as $110,000 from the district’s pay parking reserves. The rest will be covered by Capital and Infrastructure levy sources.
Coun. Duncan McMaster suggested the layout of the courts as presented “doesn’t satisfy either the pickleball players or the tennis players” and that collaboration with the area’s future users would help mitigate potential conflicts.
“Although I don’t object to the project as a whole, I would encourage staff to work with the pickleball group because I think there’s a more optimum design for the layout of the courts that would satisfy both the pickleball group and the tennis players, because at the moment you’re just creating conflicts,” he said.
Rodgers said staff would welcome input from stakeholder groups.
“This is a replacement of an existing facility, we’re not looking to expand or change it, so what we have in terms of the location and size can’t really change, but we expect to work closely with the pickleball and tennis groups and any other court users through the detailed design,” he said.
Coun. Sarah Sloman expressed concern over trees being potentilly sacrificed for the upgrades.
Rodgers responded that the district would work with arborists to see if trees could be retained.
“It’s definitely something that’s on our radar. Something that we’ve had to deal with in many of our projects in our downtown core is weighing out the removal of trees and the installation of district infrastructure. It’s always been our practice to try to save trees if we can,” he said.
“I can say that we will look at it. I can’t promise you that we won’t be removing a tree, or two, or all of them, but we’re not quite at that process there…It’s our intent not to remove trees, but if we have to for the success of the project, we sometimes do.”
During the public input portion of the meeting, Pickleball Club member Cathy Thicke said that, along with helping design the courts, the non-profit society could also help with fundraising and possible grant opportunities.
“We’d like you to know that we’re really excited about this,” she said.
“As a stakeholder, we would love to be engaged. We hope the current plan is somewhat tentative as we have several suggestions we feel would lead to improved user-group experiences.”
She said the club began with four people interested in learning how to play in 2012 and has since expanded to over 20 active members and hosted the region’s first pickleball tournament in partnership with Ucluelet in 2022.
andrew.bailey@westerlynews.ca
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