At the Parksville city council meeting on Monday, Dec. 6, the director of engineering and technology systems, Shawn Boven, went before council to seek approval for the final Parksville Community Park Stormwater Management Master Plan.
The report, completed in June of 2021, came to council as a requirement of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities grant funding agreement, initiated in Decemberof 2019.
“Stormwater management has evolved over the past couple of decades. Older thinking was to treat stormwater as a nuisance that should be dealt with as quickly as possible,” said Boven. “Today’s approach to runoff that continues to evolve is to treat rainwater as a resource that should be retained, stored and reused where possible.”
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He continued to say the master plan intends to deal with storm water in the community park in a way that upholds the principles of treating rainwater as a resource, achieved by separating the park into different rainfall catchment areas.
The chief administrative officer Keeva Kehler said the plan has been helpful when the city considers developments in the park.
“It certainly has helped us with some of the pickleball court issues. It’s also been very beneficial to have the expanded scope with the archaeological studies. We’ve used that information so many times, we use it for just normal irrigation maintenance or any time we’re digging or doing new playground equipment, or anything like that,” she said.
According to Kehler, the city will look into an implementation plan over the decade or so in the capital planning process.
During council discussions, Coun. Doug O’Brien said “we know that we had a problem in the community park and we’re (council) appreciative of the fact that staff are going to address that.”
The complete report of the Parksville Community Park Stormwater Management Master Plan can be found at www.https://parksville.civicweb.net/document/52757.