Port Moody residents will be able to share their thoughts and ideas about expanding parkland in the city’s Moody Centre neighbourhood at a special town hall early next year. A date has yet to be determined.
Mayor Meghan Lahti said Port Moody’s downtown area presents several unique challenges as it densifies and more people live there in the coming years.
“Moody Centre is an area where we need to be making strategic decisions,” she said.
“What we can do there, and what we cannot do, those are questions for the entire community.”
Lahti said the information and ideas gathered from the town hall will help inform the city’s parkland acquisition strategy, which is still in its formative stages.
The meeting will also provide an opportunity for the city to educate residents about some of the financial and legal challenges it must overcome when acquiring land to create parks, added Coun. Callan Morrison.
“As much as hearing how different ideas can happen is a good idea, being able to execute them legally and financially is another consideration.”
Last Tuesday, Nov. 12, a group of more than 35 people calling themselves Expand Rocky Point Park rallied at city hall prior to council’s endorsement of a $43-million plan charting the future of the 3.85-hectare (9.5 acres) waterfront green space.
Lahti said while enlarging the park is a “priority,” acceding to the group’s notion the city could do so easily by acquiring the old Flavelle sawmill site just to the west would be prohibitively expensive and fraught with legal and environmental complications.
“We all want to expand that park and use as many opportunities as we can to do so,” Lahti said.
At a meeting of council’s strategic priorities committee on Nov. 19, Ding Yu, Port Moody’s project manager for parks planning, told councillors the city is actually in pretty good shape when it comes to parkland.
She said the city’s 40 parks comprise 380 hectares (939 acres), not including təmtəmíxʷtən/Belcarra Regional Park and 10 school properties. That represents 13 per cent of Port Moody’s land base, of which 22 per cent is for active use and the rest is natural area.
In fact, Yu said, the amount of parkland in Port Moody per 1,000 residents “is well above average” compared to other communities in the Lower Mainland.
But, she added, that will change as Port Moody’s population grows, especially in neighbourhoods like Moody Centre, Glenayre and Coronation Park — now called the Inlet District.
Yu said the ideal target of 2.5 hectares (6.17 acres) of park space for every 1,000 residents is “aspirational,” it is achievable if the city employs “interconnected strategies” to acquire more parkland.
Coun. Haven Lurbiecki said such strategies must be part of council’s discussions as it considers upcoming development proposals.
“If we can’t keep up with parkland, then we need to moderate our development plans to what we can handle,” she said.
Coun. Samantha Agtarap said parks like Rocky Point aren’t just for Port Moody residents but also attract visitors from across the region.
“All of this comes at a cost,” she said.
Morrison said expanding the city’s parkland doesn’t just mean acquiring more property but can also include making better use of its existing spaces by building paths and adding other active uses.
“It’s not always about adding more land,” he said. “It’s also about how we use that space to get the maximum best use out of it.”
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