City Approves New Ice Rental Charges

Renting ice at one of the city-owned arenas in Saint John will cost a bit more for many users this year.

Common Council voted Monday night to implement the final phase of its new recreation subsidization policies.

“The goal of those policies was to achieve a balance between our individual user fees and taxpayer investment in terms of delivery of recreation services,” Amy McLennan, the manager of community services, told councillors.

The new policies are also meant to reflect appropriate cost-recovery percentages for various user groups, said McLennan.

Under the new policies, youth, schools and tournaments will be subsidized to 40 per cent, seniors to 30 per cent, and adults to 10 per cent.

McLennan said any increases this year will not be significant as what user groups saw during the last season.

In fact, most users will see their rental rates either remain the same or change by $2 or $3 per hour.

“The reason for that is there were a lot of efficiencies and sustainability initiatives that have been implemented and it lowered the overall operating costs that are associated with offering arena ice to our users,” said MacLennan.

One of those efficiencies was the permanent closure of the Hilton Belyea Arena, one of four city-owned rinks.

For-profit users will see the biggest change in user rates as they will no longer receive any taxpayer subsidies. Their rates will increase by as much as 95 per cent to $293 per hour across the board.

Despite the anticipated increase in revenue, the city still projects an operating deficit of around $400,000 for the three city-operated arenas.

Coun. Barry Ogden questioned if the city had consulted with ice users to get their thoughts before implementing the changes. McLennan said an engagement session took place in early 2020 when the policies were initially adopted.

“There were concerns around the rates and potential for extra costs to be turned over to registration fees for their users, so that informed our decision to recommend to council this incremental approach to allow them a little bit more time in terms of adapting,” she said.

McLennan said the city also met with representatives with Hockey New Brunswick this season to discuss the upcoming rates.

Coun. Gary Sullivan said the policy changes fail to address the fact that city taxpayers are still subsidizing arena users who do not live in the city.

Saint John had introduced non-resident user fees ahead of the 2019-20 season after plans for a regional ice strategy skid to a halt in 2019.

But that plan was scrapped after the Saint John Hotel Association stepped in to cover all expected costs from regional user fees for one year.

“I don’t suggest a solution other than now that we have all new councils, we need to be talking regionally about a lot of things and recreation is certainly one of them,” said Sullivan.