The park board released a 45-page report Tuesday with numbers that painted an overwhelmingly positive picture of the controversial access card for Vancouver’s community centres.
Twelve community centres introduced the OneCard last summer, but six other community centres opted out due to conflicts regarding the interim agreement between them and the park board.
According to the report put together by KPMG, 108,773 people had a OneCard as of March 2014, giving them access to 12 community centres in Vancouver. Ninety-five per cent of those people are Vancouver residents.
The cost of implementing the change over to a universal card was $101,896. The introduction of the OneCard brought 33,000 new users to community centres and more than half of them returned to use the facilities again.
Despite these impressive figures, concerns about the program remain.
NPA park board commissioner Melissa De Genova has heard complaints from communities since the card was introduced.
To promote it, the park board gave three free passes to anyone who signed up for one. Each pass was good for a one-time use at any facility, including pools, fitness gyms and classes.
Some regular users of community centres are questioning whether these passes were given to people outside of Vancouver.
“There was some concern that these free visits were not only for Vancouver residents,” said De Genova.
De Genova was quick to point out that Vancouver community centres have always been available to those not living in Vancouver. But some residents are finding that facilities are crowded and programs are full. Despite these concerns, De Genova is confident that the OneCard was the right step.
“I’m hoping we can smooth out those wrinkles because universal access is where we need to be,” she said.
Others are less optimistic.
Robert Lockhart, past-president at Kerrisdale Community Centre, is worried about the cost of the program. “We’re concerned that OneCard wasn’t a budgeted expense. Number two is that it was excessive — we wanted to know the details of what those costs were,” he said.
Kerrisdale Community Centre is one of six community centres that have filed three legal proceedings against the park board since August 2013. The community centre filed an FOI requesting all information regarding the cost of the introduction of OneCard.
Two weeks ago, the park board told them it would not comply with the request. Lockhart is doubtful that the report released this week would be sufficient.
“Once we look at the report, we’ll determine whether or not we’re going to go back to the FOI commission and ask them to investigate,” he said.
The report includes a break down of the implementation cost, including figures for design, marketing, printing and training.
Vision park board commissioner Nikki Sharma hopes the report will improve relations with the six community centres currently at odds with the park board.
“I hope that they will look at the data that we were able to get from the review and reconsider their position,” she said.
Sharma also emphasized that the OneCard increases access to community centres for families with financial barriers.
According to the report, there was a 409 per cent jump in the number of OneCards given to low-income residents in July to December of 2013, compared to the same time period in 2012.
The six community centres that are not participating in the program are Hastings, Riley Park-Hillcrest, Killarney, Kensington, Kerrisdale and Sunset. In January, the B.C. Supreme Court halted attempts by the park board to evict the six community centre associations.
The other 12 community centres are currently in closed-door negotiations with the park board for a new joint-operating agreement. Negotiations started more than a year ago.
