A city councillor suggests we may want to reconsider what community league infrastructure is necessary as the leagues stare down an estimated $100 million in needed repairs over the next decade.
"Community leagues are spending a lot of time simply maintaining a building rather than actually being able to do the great work that we want to see community leagues do," Ward Anirniq Coun. Erin Rutherford told Taproot.
Nearly 29,000 Edmonton households had a community league membership in 2024. Many members are likely to attend Community League Day events on Sept. 20.
The community league system needs more than $30 million by 2028 to repair aging infrastructure at neighbourhood facilities across the city, and an additional $72 million in the next 10 years, according to a report that was presented to city council's community and public services committee in August. The report notes that there is no funding in the city's operating or capital budgets to pay for these repairs.
Rutherford said that community leagues are essential social infrastructure, but it might be time to have a hard conversation about what physical infrastructure they need. She suggested a potential solution could be to halt upkeep for certain assets, including some community halls, which have a median age of 50 years and aren't expected to last more than another 30 to 40 years, anyway.
"Some of the community leagues that I see thriving the most in (my ward) are community leagues that don't actually have a hall," said Rutherford, who is running for re-election in the Oct. 20 municipal election.
Griesbach, Cumberland Oxford, and Prince Charles don't have halls but use other spaces for community programming, like skating and outdoor yoga. "They are still bringing assets together that bring people together, but they're not burdened by having to think about asbestos (abatement) and utility costs and all of those other things that are required when they're maintaining a hall," Rutherford said. "So the city's operating grants, that for a lot of leagues goes to utility bills and other things for the hall, can actually be used in community for amenities and connected opportunities."
Rutherford said during her time as a board director for the Bonnie Doon and Inglewood community leagues, the boards would regularly spend two hours of a meeting discussing building maintenance, leaving only 20 minutes to discuss community programming.
Laura Cunningham-Shpeley, the executive director of the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues, told Taproot last month that maintenance often falls through the cracks as volunteers change over. "(Building repairs) are not the fun, 'sexy' things to do — these are not the repairs that get people excited and motivated in a community league, but they're really important to get done," she said.
Rutherford suggested that instead of each neighbourhood having a full suite of amenities, community leagues could be spread among districts that encompass multiple neighbourhoods. This approach is happening organically in the newer northern suburbs that Rutherford represents, as well as the growing areas in the city's southwest. The Baturyn Community League hall is also used by the community leagues of Rapperswill, Canossa, and others. "I would like to see more coordination from the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues on a district level," Rutherford said. "How many community league halls do we collectively need to manage and maintain for the purpose of community gathering space?"
In 2023, EFCL aligned its districts with those in the City of Edmonton's District Plans, and updated its bylaws to facilitate coordination.
Correction: This story has been updated to more accurately reflect the size of community league membership in Edmonton and EFCL's efforts to coordinate community leagues at the district level.