Chatham-Kent arenas will have lower ice rates for another couple of years.
In August 2019, council approved an Arena Business Plan that includes strategic ways to help improve consistently declining arena usage in Chatham-Kent.
This included dropping rates for prime ice time from $204 to $173 plus HST and non-prime and minor hourly ice rental rates from $163 to $152 for a two-year trial period starting in September 2019.
The primary reason for the trial ice rental rate reduction was to address concerns from all ice user groups that the previous ice rates were too high and that reducing ice rates to competitive levels with neighbouring municipalities might stop ice users from leaving the municipality’s facilities and increase local registration.
However, COVID-19 pandemic restrictions meant arenas were closed for a large portion of that trial period.
On Monday night, councillor Joe Faas put forward a successful motion to extend the reduced ice rates into both the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons.
Faas said he was approached by a local ice user group who expressed concern that because of COVID-19 restrictions, the municipality might not have gotten an accurate look at if lower ice rates meant more arena usage.
Faas said he wanted to make sure the idea was given a fair chance.
"Resgtriton to a lot of these groups has declined, I guess for several reasons. What they want to do is make it affordable for everyone as much as possible. So by having a reduced rate, for the remaining two years, it might give it a fair assessment as to whether the rates are creating or maintaining the registration," he said.
Most recently, arenas have been closed in Chatham-Kent since April 3 as a result of the province-wide "emergency brake."
