For sale: Vancouver parks and rec naming rights and sponsorships

The Vancouver Park Board has voted to allow city staff to sell sponsorships and naming rights to parks and recreation facilities, with the one dissenting commissioner cautioning it won't be the cash cow Mayor Ken Sim promised.

Comm. Tom Digby voted against the motion after expressing doubt that the scheme would generate anywhere close to the tens of millions Sim floated last year when he pushed the idea.

"[Mayor Sim] thought a corporate naming policy could raise $50 million to $100 million a year for Vancouver, and let's just say he's exactly $50 million to $100 million behind on that," said Digby, speaking to the park board on Monday night. "The upside of this is all pie in the sky, imaginary and filled with ambiguity." 

According to the motion, the Sponsorship and Sponsorship Naming Rights Policy framework is meant to optimize "non-tax revenue and value-in-kind benefits to support park board facilities, infrastructure, programs, and services."

Comm. Brennan Bastyovanszky abstained from the vote. He said funds generated from the program will go into the city's general revenues and won't fix the real problem of city council's chronic underfunding of parks and recreation.

"Vancouver pays the highest amount of user fees out of any municipality already ... and the [proportion of tax] that goes to parks and recreation is lower than any other municipality," he said. "Trying to corporatize the parks and recreation system isn't a panacea — it doesn't solve anything." 

Comm. Laura Christensen said the public shouldn't be concerned that assets will be named in poor taste because the park board has final approval when it comes to naming rights. 

"I appreciate there's a lot of concern about the corporatization of our park assets," said Christensen," ... but I do think we need to be open to what's possible and what's out there."

Comm. Jas Virdi supported the motion, calling it a way to address Vancouver's crumbling recreation infrastructure.

"I don't know why everyone is looking at it in a negative light," he said. "This is how other cities fund things and build things, through sponsorships."

Park Board Chair Scott Jensen said he was committed to transparency and democracy when it comes to any potential renaming of a facility.

"We will be allowing residents to come to this board to speak their mind and give their point of view on whether or not naming a facility in their neighbourhood is something they care about or counter to the direction they believe their neighbourhood should go in," he said.

According to the policy, any sponsorship agreement worth less than $250,000 can be entered into by city staff without approval from the elected park board.