Langford council votes unanimously in favour of purchasing Westhills Langford Aquatic Centre

Langford city council has voted unanimously in favour of purchasing the Westhills Langford Aquatic Centre for the price of $35 million. The facility's largest tenant is the YMCA/YWCA, which operates the municipality's only public pool.

Langford Coun. Kimberley Guiry says she understands the importance of the pool to the community, as well as the recent financial pressures that the building’s main tenant has experienced.

"Recreation is challenging to deliver in a profitable manor; we see that across municipalities,” said Guiry.

The building was opened in 2016. Since then, the YMCA/YWCA says it has lost $10 million operating the facility, and the pandemic was the organization's breaking point.

"We're not in this to make money, but it has to be sustainable,” said Derek Gent, YMCA/YWCA of Vancouver Island CEO.

Gent says the nonprofit can no longer sustain losses like that going forward.

"When we initially got into the deal, we structured a subsidy to cover the building costs. Turns out we needed more than that to cover the building costs,” said Gent.

In 2023, the YMCA/YWCA’s board voted unanimously to break its contract with the building's owner and walk away from the deal if the City of Langford didn’t increase its subsidy to cover the costs of running the facility. The requested increase was from $950,000 to $1.9 million. The City of Langford agreed.

Now, the city has decided to buy the building from Westhills for $35 million. The city is borrowing $20 million for the purchase, to be paid back over the next five years. That timeline means no referendum is needed.

Langford Coun. Colby Harder says the purchase will save the municipality money in the long run.

"Over 17 years, we would save $10 million, and over the remaining lifespan of the building, we would stand to save $121 million,” said Harder.

Steve Rossander is one of many Langford residents who believes council did not do its due diligence on the deal.

"They definitely put the cart before the horse here,” said Rossander. "It's unfortunate that they decided to exclude a key piece of information, which is operational analysis of one of their main state tenants, the YMCA/YWCA."

Instead, he says, the city agreed to purchase the building now, while doing a proper recreation analysis later.

Rossander also says the five-year amortization period for the loan is short-sighted. If a 25-year mortgage was taken out on that $20 million loan, the annual payment would be around $1.33 million. That is $567,000 less than the current $1.9 million being paid in subsidies to the YMCA/YWCA, and in the end, the city would still own the building.

"The quick math says, how much of a tax increase would you need to do to fund that? And the answer is zero, because it's less than what you're already paying, which is already baked into the budget,” said Rossander.

The City of Langford says each year property taxes will need to be increased by 1.75 per cent until the loan is paid back in 2028.