'I'm just disappointed': Richmond Hill to close its only bocce facility

Bocce players are not happy with the alternative portable bocce facility

Yorkregion.com
August 14, 2018
Sheila Wang

Come September, Domenico Pisani may have to travel to another town to play his favourite sport, bocce.

Richmond Hill is removing its  only indoor permanent bocce facility at Rouge Woods Community Centre in order to convert it into a new multi-purpose gymnasium.

Council approved the renovation plan at the community centre in November 2016. The four bocce courts will close at the end of this month to allow construction work to begin in early September.

“To me, it’s a sickness for them to do that,” said Pisani, who has fought the council decision with his fellow bocce players from the start.

The longtime Richmond Hill resident, who plays bocce four times a week, said he did not know what to do without it.

The town has offered a portable bocce system at the Richmond Green Sports Centre and Park as a new venue for players, but Pisani and his friends find it hard to compare with what they have at Rouge Woods.

“It’s for kids. Not professional,” said Giuseppe Piselli, a bocce player in Richmond Hill. “They said they were going to show us another time, but that time never came. They’re going to leave us without.”

Richmond Green will have three bocce courts as a seasonal facility for bocce players from Oct. 1 to April 31 every year with a lower membership fee.

“It’s never a mandate to provide a professional facility. It’s for recreational purpose only,” Lauren Steckley, manager of recreation programs for Richmond Hill’s community services department said. “It won’t be the same, but it’ll be enough.”

A proper bocce facility would require at least a solid surface and a raised barrier, which the portable system at Richmond Green doesn’t have, the bocce players argued.

“I won’t go to the new place. Why would I? I’m not a kid,” Pisani said, adding most of his bocce friends wouldn't go either.

He might go to the facilities in Vaughan instead, but the 84-year-old is concerned about driving in the winter.

“I’m just disappointed. It is like a slap in the face,” Pisani said.

Richmond Hill regional Coun. Brenda Hogg said the council had to make this decision due to the declining membership that fails to sustain the cost.

Pisani blames the low membership on the “bad management” and the increased membership fee.

When the 7,200-square-foot indoor bocce facility opened in 2001, there were 266 members who paid a $10 membership fee plus $5 per hour per court. However, the town ended up subsidizing some 88 per cent of the cost in the first year of operation.

The membership fee has gone up to $125 since 2005, and the number of players has dropped to 55 this year, according to Steckley.

"We tried for many years to allow the group to build the numbers. But with the facilities we have in town and the growing population, we really need to get the best use out of the recreational facilities we have," Hogg said.

The $942,800 renovation at Rouge Woods is expected to be complete in January 2019 with a full-size multi-purpose gymnasium for all ages, without a bocce facility.