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Community & Recreation Facilities Strategy

Project Summary

Haldimand County is preparing a Community & Recreation Facilities Strategy to identify major facility needs across the County and establish a long-term implementation plan.

The Strategy will focus on community recreation facilities such as aquatics, sports, arts and community wellness spaces. The process will be informed by public and stakeholder input and will examine:

  • Facility needs;
  • Financial feasibility;
  • Partnerships; and,
  • Potential locations.

Outcomes may include plans to enhance or re-purpose existing facilities for programming or build new facilities that will meet the needs of our growing community.

Planning Process

The guiding principles for the Community & Recreation Facilities Strategy (CRFS) are:

  1. Build a healthy and engaged community, foster active lifestyles and promote skill development;
  2. Provide inclusive, affordable and accessible recreational opportunities for all Haldimand residents, especially youth and seniors;
  3. Ensure that major facilities are multi-use, multi-generational, programmable year-round and responsive to the needs of our local communities;
  4. Foster and support partnerships that create synergies, leverage resources and allow the County to maintain core services;
  5. Make decisions that are financially responsible and sustainable for the County and its residents.

For almost three decades Council has heard from the community and considered options to develop an indoor recreation facility, including possibly an indoor pool.

The primary factor in determining the sustainability of these types of higher-order facilities is population growth. With increasing population projections for the County (from 50,400 residents currently to 68,000 by 2041), the time is right to review the long-term need for recreation facilities to support the community’s success and well-being.

Timeline & Status

The Community & Recreation Facilities Strategy CRFS has three phases:

  1. Background Review, Community Consultation, Needs Assessment
  2. Location Analysis, Preliminary Concepts, Business Plan
  3. Finalization of the Strategy.

At this time, Phase 1 has been completed including:

  • A Community Survey that resulted in 2,000 responses, representing 7,000 residents;
  • Four Public Open Houses with seventy participants;
  • Consultation meetings with Community Stakeholders;
  • Council Input;
  • A Staff Workshop; and,
  • Regional and Community-Specific Demographics & Data (Environics, etc.).

A Phase 1 report outlining Research, Consultation & Preliminary Options was presented to Council on August 23, 2022.

Phase 2—Location Analysis, Preliminary Concepts, Business Plan Development—begins mid-2023 to year-end.

Watch for the Community & Recreation Facilities logo for information and updates.

About the Consultant

Meet the Consultants:

Haldimand County is very excited to be working with the consulting team of Monteith Brown Planning Consultants, MJMA Architecture & Design and The JF Group.

London, ON-based Monteith Brown is one of Canada’s leading parks and recreation planning and design teams, with a strong understanding of recreation trends, facility development and operating strategies. The firm has completed hundreds of recreation studies across Canada, and its work spans smaller rural communities to the largest urban centres. Monteith Brown is already quite familiar with Haldimand County, having previously developed two key recreation documents that have guided County efforts in the past ten to fifteen years: the 2006 Master Plan for Leisure Services and the 2009 Trails Master Plan.

MJMA Architecture & Design’s 30+ years of experience are almost exclusively focused on multi-user facilities that include a diverse range of programming such as aquatics centres, high performance sport, community recreation, libraries, wellness programs, community gathering and meeting spaces, sports fields and courts and much more. The firm’s facility design ethos is based on supporting maximum social and programming interaction across a wide demographic user group and linking interior spaces with exterior landscaped parks and sports areas.

Established in 1981, The JF Group’s expertise is in the area of recreation and sport facility development including business planning, feasibility analysis, organizational effectiveness, alternative service provision and cost recovery strategies. Most recently, The JF Group has completed an innovative project for the Canadian Parks & Recreation Association called ReImagine RREC (Renew, Retool, Engage and Contribute). ReImagine RREC is a multi-phase COVID-19 recovery initiative for recreation, parks and community sport leaders, intended to improve planning, operations and delivery of programs and services in a pandemic and post-pandemic environment, as well as contribute to community recovery more broadly.

Contact Information

For more information about the Community & Recreation Facilities Strategy, contact:

Community Development & Partnerships 

or call 905-318-5932 x.6370