Monday, February 21, 2011

New park space in Burnside Gorge

The City is leasing a space from the United Church located on Balfour Street

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The location is a single lot that connects the Chown Place United Church seniors development with Balfour Street.   It will be nice to have this vacant lot become a play space for kids, though it will encourage more people to walk through Chown Place to get there.  What should be noted is that there is an existing kids playground park only 600 metres away on Davin.   There is second one that is 450 metres away as the crow flies, 850 metres on the streets, on Cecelia.

I have not heard if this is intended as a replacement for the lost park land on Ellice.   I am still hoping for a connection from Maddock Street to the Galloping Goose as this would attract a very high degree of use and would mean the existing kids park on Cecelia would get a lot more use.  Getting that connection would allow people to walk there without having to be in Burnside or Gorge and would save several hundred metres in distance.

The play park on Cecelia is dramatically under used because of the lack of decent walking access.  

The lack of a walkable route through to the Galloping Goose means that the Burnside Gorge Community Centre is under used.   For the amount of funding the community centre gets, and all the money spent on the building, it does a very bad job of being relevant to the community.   Frankly there should be serious consideration given to closing the community centre and focusing closer to the heart of the community and in a location accessible by the general public.   In an ideal world it would be connected to Tillicum school.

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