Mayor wants rec plan to consider bringing back small neighbourhood parks

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A new recreation plan for the city will include a mapping of small public land parcels that could be used as neighbourhood parks after Mayor Kate Rogers said there used to be several of them maintained by the city before it changed its focus to maintaining bigger parks.

Sierra Planning and Management director Jon Hack presented his progress to date on the city’s new recreation and leisure master plan to the livable community committee on Tuesday. During that presentation, Rogers recalled having informal common spaces in neighbourhoods where children could play, and said most of those parks have been decommissioned over the years.

“Sometimes they had a piece of playground equipment, and sometimes they didn’t,”  Rogers said. “They were maintained by city operations. Some are more formalized, like Rabbit Town Park or Morell Park, but most of them are pieces of land that connect one street to the next with a trail through them and some green space.”

She said the city has since done away with most of them to focus its resources on larger parks. However, she said some residents aren’t able to travel outside their neighbourhoods to access bigger parks.

“I’m wondering if it would be possible to revisit (small neighbourhood parks) for newcomers and socioeconomic reasons and see if there’s an opportunity to make those spaces available as gathering places for people,” she said. “Residents used to gather there and have neighbourhood parties or play dodgeball, for example.”

Rogers said the city has several well-used public parks, but making land available in residential areas for public use should also be an option.

Sierra Planning and Management director Jon Hack, the consultant on the rec plan, said mapping public parks and land for public use will be part of his firm’s final report, which will eventually be presented to council for a vote.

He said neighbourhood parks could be factored into new developments and based on what the community needs in any given location and whether the city can afford to maintain more facilities.

“This is about providing usable space in proximity to where people live,” he said. “These spaces should be within 400 to 500 metres of people’s homes, and where there are gaps, they will need to be plugged.”

Deputy mayor Greg Ericson said the housing shortage and proximity to existing school playgrounds should be considered when identifying land for neighbourhood parks or to offer to developers.