Agenda, June 23
Dartmouth Common Cricket
It was a relatively light Council meeting (for the public portion anyway), but there were two District 5 items on the agenda. Up first was the potential conversion of the two ball fields on the Dartmouth Common along Thistle Street into a cricket pitch. The proposal has come out of HRM’s Playing Field Strategy, which identified a pressing need for a cricket pitch. Cricket has been growing rapidly in HRM, mainly driven by the fact that our city is attracting and holding immigrants in a way that we never did in decades past. A growing community of residents of Southeast Asian descent means that interest in cricket has been growing significantly since the game is very popular in that part of the world (also the UK, New Zealand, Australia, parts of the Caribbean, and Southern Africa!). There are several active teams in HRM, but a lack of space is seriously constraining the sport. The only available cricket space is the shared field on the Halifax Common and at Don Bayer Field in Burnside and neither of these locations is properly sized. The result is women and youth cricket play is mostly happening in unsuitable indoor spaces and there is lots of unauthorized cricket going on at fields throughout HRM. Cricket needs a real pitch. The sport needs more space. This is not a niche sport with a couple guys playing it. It has grown significantly.
Unfortunately, cricket is really hard to situate. It has the biggest playing field requirement of any sport, and the field is oval shaped. It is way harder to locate a cricket pitch than a soccer field or a ball diamond. Staff went through HRM’s inventory of space trying to find a site that is big enough, flat, and centrally located. A central location is key because HRM isn’t building multiple cricket pitches! Our resources are already stretched. We need to make the most of the one that is being planned. Meeting all of that criteria is a tall order! What staff identified as the best location is the Dartmouth Common where the two existing ball fields could be converted relatively easily into a cricket pitch.
The good news is that HRM actually has Provincial support for a cricket project. The Province has committed $1,000,000 to this project, which can be spent on a cricket pitch, but also on other park spaces if existing uses need to be relocated. So what staff have identified as the best move would be to convert the Dartmouth Common ball fields to cricket, but also enhance other fields to make up for the lost space. This would be done by upgrading the ball field at John Martin Junior High in Dartmouth North. The John Martin field currently has no programmed hours whatsoever. It is not a booked field, it’s basically just an open green space next to the school. The field would be fenced and there would be field upgrades to make this into a proper diamond again. It’s a great location next to the library, community centre, transit, and the school. In talking with staff, there would also likely be a pathway built along one of the sides so that past issues with people cutting across the field to get to Highfield during play would be reduced/eliminated. HRM would also add lights to the Greenough ballfield on Mount Edward Road. The Greenough field isn’t booked as frequently as the other two fields along Mount Edward Road and the difference is lighting. Staff believe adding lights to Greenough would enable more play in the evening for older kids and adults, creating a domino effect that frees up earlier time slots at other diamonds for youth.
HRM’s plan sounds good on paper: we get a cricket pitch, we get upgrades to two ball fields, and the Province pays for it! The plan though has run head on into concerns from the baseball world. The Dartmouth Common ball fields aren’t booked very often compared to other HRM fields, but they are used for youth play and have some special significance given the Common’s long-standing history around baseball. The Dartmouth District Minor Baseball Association has organized a petition and opposes the field conversion. The Baseball Association indicates that there isn’t enough field space as it is and to take away this space would only further pressure a sport that has seen growing interest coming out of last year’s stellar Blue Jays season and already has wait lists. The whole thing has become a sticky wicket for Council! We’ve definitely been thrown a curveball!
A Supplemental Report
The report before Council didn’t have a recommendation, it was an information report. A heads up, this is what we’re planning sort of notice to Council. As a result, it isn’t a fulsome response to all the questions that have now been raised, particularly around field availability and the Dartmouth Common’s historical significance. So I asked for a supplemental report to specifically look at:
- Field availability in Dartmouth
- Potential for shared-use for both cricket and baseball
- Potential to restore the abandoned ball field on Green Road behind the Dartmouth Shopping Centre once the designated encampment closes
Field availability is something that I think Council needs to have a better picture of as the feedback from the community is there is a shortage of space. A proper inventory of all our fields and their booking times would be helpful for Council in making this decision.
The second piece is the baseball folks have pitched the potential for shared-use on the Common. This isn’t something that staff are very supportive of because cricket and baseball have different field needs and the expectation is there is enough cricket demand that the sport needs a space of its own. Adding yet another shared space won’t really help if there is the potential for 1,000+ cricket hours! I found this section of the staff report a bit light though and, given that the Baseball Association has specifically asked for HRM to consider a shared-use setup, I think it needs a second and more detailed look.
Finally, I want staff to assess the Green Road site because it’s a very short distance away from the current ball fields. It was once a ball field and my very preliminary chat with staff about it suggests that, given that it was once a ball field, it probably wouldn’t take a huge amount of work to bring it back into use after the designated encampment closes. I get that there is a strong community attachment to having baseball in central Dartmouth. This is where the Dartmouth Arrows played back in the day. It was the home of Little Brooklyn and the Common ball diamonds are named for Arthur Merrick, the founder of youth baseball in Dartmouth. That history is important. What I’m wondering is if bringing Green Road back to life gives us the the potential to have both cricket and baseball on the Dartmouth Common.
What’s Next?
So what will happen next is staff will go away and prepare a supplemental report for Council’s consideration. There is time to look at this. HRM wasn’t planning to convert the Dartmouth Common Fields until 2028. Upgrades to John Martin and Greenough will be needed in 2027 though so while there is time, it’s not infinite. I’m hoping that staff will be able to return to Council in a few months time.
Two other things that I wanted to touch on. It has been suggested that we should just build a cricket pitch somewhere else on a greenfield site. That would be possible, but there are a few problems with that. Given the size needed for cricket, that would inevitably mean a location somewhere much less accessible than the Dartmouth Common, and we don’t have the resources right now to build multiple cricket pitches. It would also be many times more expensive. HRM staff believe we can have cricket and two upgraded ball fields for about $1,000,000. That’s a very economical use of our limited resources! To build a new cricket pitch from scratch would take multiple millions. We need to try and use what we have as efficiently as possible. Over the longer-term, HRM is hoping to build a multi-field sports complex where there could be multiple diamonds in one place to enable tournament type play, but that would be a major project that we currently can’t afford. The Playing Field Strategy identified a field complex project as a longer-term move, which, given current fiscal realities, is probably in the 10-20 year horizon.
The second piece I wanted to take a moment to address is a bit of an uglier side of this topic. Most of the correspondence and social media postings I have seen on this have been respectful, but there has been feedback with some pretty racist overtones and also some downright hateful stuff. I want to clearly say that HRM needs a cricket pitch because residents of HRM want to play cricket. Where someone is from originally or where their parents or grandparents are from doesn’t matter. If you live here, you’re one of us. You’re part of this community and your needs are just as important as anyone else’s. Our community is becoming more diverse and with that, our sporting and recreational needs are also changing. A lot of people in HRM want to play cricket. It’s HRM’s job to respond to that. Hate has no place in this discussion.
Pinecrest Housing
The other District 5 item on Council’s agenda was a public hearing to sell a vacant municipally owned lot at 48 Pinecrest Drive to a non-profit housing provider for $1. A public hearing is required by the Charter whenever HRM sells property for less than market value. 48 Pinecrest is a fairly unremarkable vacant building lot along an otherwise developed stretch. The property was purchased by the City of Dartmouth back in 1993. Dartmouth also owned the two properties next door around the same time period. The City of Dartmouth sold the neighbouring lots to Dartmouth Non-Profit Housing in 1992 and, therefore, it seems likely that the City of Dartmouth intended to develop this property as affordable housing as well. Plans got interrupted though with amalgamation and municipal reform in 1996, which moved the provision of housing to the Province. Now, here we are, over 30 years later, and this forgotten lot is going to finally be put to use!
HRM went out for proposals and the best value offer came from HRM’s neighbours, Dartmouth Non-Profit Housing, now known as Rooted. Rooted has owned the two properties next door since 1992 and is the perfect purchaser because this gives them three properties in a row, creating the potential for a larger project. The zoning along this side of Pinecrest is Higher Order Residential with a height limit of five storeys so there is the potential for an apartment building. Rooted’s plans aren’t fully finalized, but they do see the potential for a 22 unit building with a mix of affordable and market rents. Rooted envisions renting half the units for 30% under market (currently $750-$1,000 a month). Rooted still needs to refine their plans and secure funding for the project so there are hurdles still to clear. Hopefully this will come together and this property can finally be put to use for the reason it was purchased in the first place all those decades ago!
Other
- Amended the License, Permits and Process Fee Administrative Order to bring the parking rate changes approved during budget deliberations into effect later this year (tentatively planned to come into effect July 15)
- Also adopted a new administrative order to collect a 5% administrative fee from private road associations that HRM collects area rates for to fund road maintenance
- And adopted a revised administrative order for rural transit grants to better support non-profits providing door-to-door transportation in rural areas (Musgo Rider, Bay Rides etc). Notably they will now be eligible for capital grants
- Approved a $55,000 grant to the Halifax Jazz Festival funded by the hotel room levy
- Requested a staff report on potential restrictions around blasting near daycares and elementary schools
What about the field bordered by John, Pelzant, Bligh, and Dawson Streets. That was once a baseball field.