CLDC releases survey results

Proponents of an indoor swimming pool got a big boost with the CLDC's recent survey.

A new, comprehensive survey of the public's support for a recreation district/YMCA facility shows strong support for a community center with a swimming pool included.

The professionally done survey by Strategic Research, commissioned by the Community Development Leadership Committee (CLDC), took a close look at not just what people said they wanted, but what they were willing to support monetarily.

The survey is one component of the CLDC's analysis of community needs and wants. It focused on the revenue side of any proposal for a community center, asking citizens, among other things, what they would be willing to spend on each of three basic ideas generated from an earlier survey. All the survey proposals involved providing programs and activities for families, adults and children.

Option 1 would involve a facility that includes a cardiovascular center, indoor track, aerobic rooms, a nursery, meeting space, a snack bar, locker rooms, a youth activity center and a teen center. Membership fees were projected to be $41 per month for families, or individual membership fees that ranged from $13 to $26, depending on the age of the individual.

Option 2 would include all the facilities from Option 1, but add a regulation-sized gymnasium with six basketball hoops and the ability to accommodate two volleyball courts. Membership fees were projected to be $48 per month for families, or individual membership fees that ranged from $15 to $30, depending on the age of the individual.

Option 3 included all the facilities in the first two options, and included an aquatics center with a 25-yard lap pool, a deep water section for classes and therapy and a water slide and splash area for younger children and non-swimmers.

For that option, membership fees were projected to be $68 per month for families, or individual membership fees that ranged from $21 to $39, depending on the age of the individual.

Option 2 received the least support from the public, with only 37 percent of respondents saying they would "definitely" or "probably" pay for a membership, and 16 percent saying they "might or might not."

Option 1, the "bare bones" facility, received the second most favorable response, with 44 percent of respondents saying they would "definitely" or "probably" pay for a membership, and 16 percent saying they "might or might not."

But to the surprise of almost everyone involved in the analysis, Option 3, which included the proposal for an indoor pool, while more expensive in terms of membership, received the highest ranking.

A total of 53 percent of respondents said they would "definitely" or "probably" pay for a membership, and 17 percent said they "might or might not."

The survey looked only at memberships, not potential day-use revenue.

Projecting the survey results against the number of estimated households in the district (based on census figures), Option 1 would generate $33,611 in monthly revenue, and Option 2 would do only slightly better, with $34,960 in monthly revenue. But Option 3, which included the pool, would generate nearly three times as much revenue -- a projected $87,734 a month.

The developers of the survey, Strategic Research, were "very conservative" in generating those revenue projections, said Jack Walborn, who headed up the subcommittee for the CLDC's survey efforts.

"They knew, based on past experience, that just because someone says they'll spend that money, that not everyone actually does. So they took the raw survey results and assumed only 50 percent of the 'definitely' respondents would actually buy a membership, and only 20 percent of the 'probably' respondents would do so. For the 'might or might not' they assumed only 2 percent would do so.

The next step in the CLDC process is to analyze the expenses expected to be incurred by each of the options, Walborn said.

That analysis should be completed in the next three weeks.

The raw survey data, for the public to look at, can be found on a special website: http://www.ymcatvidaho.org/index.cfm?ID=93,24,7.

The survey results are in a downloadable pdf format.