As many of you know, a new aquatics centre is being built where the baseball diamond and playground used to be at Parkside Drive and Marietta Street. The updated renderings for the site show a large, commercial HVAC unit directly across from homes.

The ask:  Relocate the large, noisy commercial HVAC equipment for the pool to the north side of the aquatics centre (AWAY from homes).

Why?

•  The entire north side of the building faces a parking lot and non-residential buildings like the Senior’s Centre and Curling Club. Why put it in front of homes when it could instead go where it won't bother anyone!
• The current proposed location of the HVAC unit does not allow room for trees to camouflage it. I think pretty much everyone has noted that trees will be essential to help blend the building into the neighbourhood.

Additional information:

• If you haven’t seen it, the aquatics centre is like a huge open tent. There aren’t any obstacles to putting HVAC wherever it needs to go.
• Keeping the HVAC unit on the west side removes the proposed sidewalk. Perhaps, like me, you’ve held your breath watching parents with little ones navigate that corner in the dark winter months while cars don’t see them until the last second. The snow entirely blocks visibility when walking on the road around that corner in the winter. I’d welcome a sidewalk there versus an HVAC unit.
• The construction company will say it can’t be done.  It's predictable and not true. Case in point: they also blocked the playground over a month ahead of time, because it would be “too hard” to send someone out for 20 minutes to move the fence later. What we need is for the town to be willing to stand up for residents and push back on the builder.
• You might think this is a little late to raise the HVAC issue. If you don’t live in the area, you might not realize that there were no public open houses done for this project, the town will not share the site plan, the current councillor won’t respond to emails, and the new councillor isn’t yet in place. It’s been hard to get info.

Even if you love the idea of a new aquatics centre, I hope you will sign this petition asking the town to modify the design (return to the original design?)  to better accommodate your neighbours! 

Below: a screenshot from the video the town released last week, showing large HVAC equipment across from homes

Below: the orignal renderings shared (note that there is no HVAC equipment on the west side).