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From the team jerseys, to the soccer cleats, to the fans, the soccer fields of Toronto are colourful.Valerie Bertouche

Toronto city hall is reintroducing its contentious sports-field fees for children and youth, but at roughly half the price of a shelved proposal that sparked a revolt among the city's minor sports leagues.

A new report to the mayor's executive committee, released Tuesday, recommends charging between $2 and $6 per hour in 2013, depending on the quality of the field.

The old plan was to charge between $5.31 and $10.62 in a bid to raise $1.5-million to help the Parks, Forestry and Recreation department meet its budget-reduction target.

"They're a lot better than they were," Mayor Rob Ford said of the proposed fees. "Obviously we can't do it for nothing but they came down quite a bit so I think it's acceptable. I think people know out there they have to pay something."

The new fees, if adopted by council, are expected to rake in $850,000, according to the report.

In exchange for asking children and youth to pay, the parks department is promising to improve the conditions of Toronto's sports field, develop a new policy for rainouts and develop a new system to classify fields.

Councillor Janet Davis, who worked with local sports groups to fight the new fees, says the city needs to show it is making improvements to the pitches before it imposes new charges.

"Permit fees were rejected by all of the sports associations because they simply weren't going to get any improvements in the fees for the money," she said. "We've got to get the fields in decent shape before we can justify increasing the fees for children and youth."

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