Parksville city council was divided over a vote to acquire more parkland at last Wednesday’s (Aug. 8) council meeting.
The developer of a subdivision at 151 Despard Avenue West and 292 Stanford Avenue West was proposing to provide 0.5 hectares of land to council for park purposes. According to a report from the city, the Local Government Act requires a park contribution of up to five per cent, adding that the “landowner has the option of choosing to provide land or equivalent payment for park purposes.”
Councillors Leanne Salter, Kim Burden and Mary Beil said they were both in support of a park in the area. Beil added that the strip of land has been identified by a number of residents as a “lovely route leading toward the downtown area.”
The assessed value for the property, according to city documents is $229,100.
Coun. Sue Powell said the city has a lot of parkland and asked staff how much it cost the city to maintain a park roughly that size.
Vaughn Figueira, director of engineering and operations, said the annual costs to maintain a park that size is about $20,000.
“The city already has a lot of these pocket parks that we have to maintain,” Powell said. “I’d much rather see a five-per-cent donation (to parkland).”
While some in the community have voiced support for a trail in the proposed parkland donation, Coun. Kirk Oates said there is no commitment that there is going to be a trail.
“To say that people would like to have a trail there, that’s well and good. But the fact of the matter is that in 11 years, we would exhaust the amount of money that we would get for it just in maintenance based on Mr. Figueira’s rough estimate.”
Oates said he would rather have money put into a parkland reserve for a “major purchase” some time in the future.
Salter said the subdivision, which would be more than 80 lots, would “bring in more than $20,000 in tax dollars.”
“We need small green spaces as well as large green spaces,” said Salter, adding that large green spaces can be very expensive and small green spaces are “paramount” for someone living in a subdivision.
Patterson said she was concerned that since it was a small bit of parkland, that it could potentially be the site of a homeless camp.
“I’d hate to have anyone tell me that this couldn’t end up being another piece of property like Mark’s Nature Park that would have to be treed and cut down and made sure it was visible,” Patterson said.
Beil agreed that homeless camps were a concern, but added, “I don’t think we want to eliminate green spaces and pathways that are so important for everyone’s well being because we’re afraid that somebody might be setting up camp.”
In the vote for the city to accept the 0.5 ha., only councillors Burden, Salter and Beil voted in favour.
Council then had to vote to accept a payment of five per cent for a total of $229,100. Councillors Burden, Salter and Beil voted against accepting the payment.