Calgary council finds funds for 4 new rec centres

Work could start in the next year on four new recreation centres in Calgary.

The badly-needed rec centres were put on hold last fallafter the Harper governmentrefused to allow a federal agencyto put up to $100 million towards them.

But city council approved a plan this afternoon to use provincial infrastructure money, developer levies and GST rebates to build the facilities.

Three rec centres will be built in the southeast and one in the far northwest.

Ald. Shane Keating says tens of thousands of people in the fast-growing communities of the southeast will welcome this news.

"We had the Genesis open this year," said Keating. "That was an extremely long time. We're gonna open four more in the next few years. We look at the number of kids who are waiting or standing in lines, I've heard of cases where they're trying to go swimming and they're waiting in a line outside to get into the pool. That has to stop and we have to look at the service so this is fabulous."

Mayor Naheed Nenshi says the best part of getting work going on these badly-needed facilities is that not one penny will come from property taxes.

Final details will be worked out by June. Nenshi says they could all be open within five years.

And as for the $3 million the city spent trying to get rec centre money from P3 Canada, Nenshi says he's going to keep trying to get that money back from Ottawa.