Columbia Park Renewal Concept Plan

Good evening, Commissioners. I'd like to introduce the project team. I'll start with Park Board staff stepping up to the table. Associate Director Ian Stewart, Landscape Architect Sophie McNeil, who will present tonight, and supported... In the audience by Ben Mulhall, in the brown jacket and blue shirt in the audience, our senior project manager and team lead. Also, importantly, I want to recognize our colleagues and partners in this project. The general manager of the city engineering department, Lon LeClaire, is in the audience, as is Amy Sidwell, director, urban watersheds, sewers, and drainage. They'll be able to respond directly to any questions you have for the engineering aspects of the project. And we have Rob Lukes, associate director of strategy and planning for green infrastructure, part of... Director Sidwell's team on the line as well. So I'll do a brief introduction and then hand the floor over to our park board staff to present. The proposed concept plan before you this evening is a collaboration with the city's engineering department. This concept for the future of Columbia Park, including an underground stormwater detention tank, has been in the making for several years and had been previously supported by board directions and policies as well as community engagement. It proposes necessary infrastructure to support not only rainwater management and the prevention of downstream flooding in the catchment area, but importantly also to reimagine a park within the Canby Corridor plan area, a development area projected to accommodate 40,000 new residents over time. That's a lot of people pressure coming to this former suburban neighbourhood park.

Staff are seeking your approval this evening of the concept plan and forward-looking agreements with the engineering department. We're also seeking your advocacy for funding the project in the upcoming 2027 to 2030 capital plan. Thank you. And Director Stewart and landscape architect, Sophie McNeil, take it away. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Sophie McNeil. I'm a landscape architect and the park development project manager for the Columbia Park Renewal Project. I'm pleased to be here this evening on behalf of the entire project team to present this project, which is the result of a close collaboration between Park Board and Engineering Services and reflects a coordinated cross-departmental approach to delivering much-needed park renewals and critical infrastructure in a way that maximizes public benefits. Next slide. Does that work? Oh, I can do it. Great. Thank you. Is it this one? OK. So this presentation will include an overview of the public engagement process and the proposed concept plan, including the integration of an underground stormwater detention tank that will help prevent downstream flooding. This information is being presented in order to support the board in considering a decision on that proposed concept plan. And to further support that decision and the associated recommendations, in this presentation we'll also be providing an overview of the project's background, policy context, and funding considerations.

As illustrated in the timeline at the bottom of this slide, you can see that the project has involved extensive coordination, engagement, and analysis. and has now reached a key milestone where a board decision is required to advance the project to detailed design and construction and to allow for integrated and coordinated design work to continue with city engineering.

So I'll begin with some brief context and background to explain the importance of this project at this particular location and at this particular time. Columbia Park is located in the Oak Ridge local area I'm just east of Cambie Street and the Oak Ridge development and just south of 41st Ave within the neighborhood that's experiencing significant growth and change as part of the broader Cambie corridor and also transit-oriented development. This project was originally initiated as part of the Alberta Street Blue-Green System and Columbia Park Renewal Project to address several interconnected priorities, including population growth and densification, sewer separation and infrastructure capacity, climate resiliency, park services, and connectivity. Together with Alberta Street, this project represents an early step towards the van play vision of Little Mountain to Big River and supports a more connected system of parks and open spaces throughout our city. Finally the Columbia Park renewal is not only guided by specific directives within van play and one water It also aligns with many other park board and city strategies including the urban forest strategy sports field strategy Rain City strategy and people's parks and dogs So now with that context this slide shows the proposed Columbia Park concept plan, which has been designed to address those interconnected and overlapping complex priorities. Some key features we wanted to highlight in this plan includes along the westernmost edge of it is the blue-green edge, which integrates rainwater management and habitat in the park, while also linking it to the broader Alberta Street Greenway and citywide habitat corridor. There is also a synthetic turf sports field that's located above an underground stormwater detention tank. This amenity was chosen for compatibility with the required infrastructure and to support year-round recreation in a high-density context. There will also be a new larger inclusive playground that includes nature play elements. plazas and loop pathways to support accessibility, recreation, and social connection, a washroom building that will replace the existing Portland loo, green open space for informal socializing and recreating, and a fenced dog off-leash area. The extents of phase one that you can see on the plan were based in part

on which existing park elements will be impacted by construction of the detention tank, which was detailed in Appendix B of the report, and also along with careful consideration of prioritized park servicing priorities. So for example, the current playground is located where the underground infrastructure will be installed and its replacement aligns with the park's broader playground renewal priorities. making it a clear priority for this initial phase of work. So this next slide provides an overview of the engagement. As mentioned, engagement played a really important role in shaping the concept plan. It was carried out over three rounds beginning in 2021 as part of the broader work with Alberta Street Blue-Green System. Activities included a Shape Your City page and surveys, four public information sessions, on-site signage, and meetings with interested parties, including the Vancouver Field Sports Federation. This slide shows three photos from the 2024 public engagement that happened on-site when we were sharing the draft of this concept plan that you saw tonight. Highlights from what we heard at that engagement included strong excitement for a new larger playground with shade, a fenced OLA and green open space. There was some mixed feedback on fence synthetic turf with some preference for natural lawn, but overall there was support for the recommended concept.

For financial considerations, the total estimated project costs for Columbia Park concept phase one is 19 million, to be cost shared with engineering. This amount does include construction costs and associated soft costs like project management and consulting fees, permitting and contingencies. For funding, funding for phase one includes an engineering contribution that is up to 50% cost share for this first phase of park renewal to compensate for the use of parkland and replacement of existing impacted features for an underground stormwater detention tank.

For the park board contribution of this initial phase, it will require a funding allocation of approximately $9.7 million in the 2027 to 2030 capital plan to advance detailed design and construction pending board decision. The estimated annual operating impact to the capital budget is about $44 million. $440,000, including $60,000 for synthetic turf operations.

And before we move into the recommendations, we just want to briefly include a couple of slides to provide some additional context about why a synthetic turf field, which is a significant part of the project costs, was recommended for this project.

We recognize this is a topic that is a point of interest for the community, and it's important to understand the context and broad recreational planning and its proposed location above an underground attention tank in a densifying area. While the upfront capital cost is higher than a natural turf field, synthetic turf supports significantly more use, helping the park deliver year-round recreation that's the equivalent of four natural turf sports field. In high-density areas like Oak Ridge, natural turf is particularly challenging to maintain. It requires rest and recovery periods that are difficult to enforce. And strategies like fencing often leads to unintended uses, such as dogs, and making the limiting overuse not very effective. The sports field strategy details more information about synthetic turf. And it also specifically recommends this surface when subsurface infrastructure, such as a detention tank, is required. One of the key reasons for that is that it reduces the risk of service disruptions and ensures a reliable plain surface.

This next slide just shows a breakdown of that high-level comparison between a natural and synthetic turf field in terms of the service levels, cost considerations, operations and maintenance, and further notes on the compatibility of it with an underground tank. But we're not going to go into those in details. We just wanted to include it here for reference and a reminder of the rationale behind the recommendation for a synthetic turf field in this location.

So finally, that brings us to the recommendations included in the report for decision tonight.

They are A, that the Vancouver Park Board approve the concept plan for the renewal of Columbia Park as described in this report and shown in the appendices. B, that the Vancouver Park Board approve of the use of a portion of Columbia Park for an underground city stormwater detention tank managed by the city's engineering department. And C, that the Vancouver Park Board authorize the general manager of parks and recreation and the City's Engineering Services General Manager to finalize and execute funding and land use agreements for the use of Columbia Park by the Engineering Department for a stormwater detention tank to the satisfaction of the General Manager of Parks and Recreation.

So that includes the presentation. We welcome any questions.

Thank you so much.

Do you happen to know that Yeah, we would we typically Require field replacement after 10 to 15 years That's the general. Yeah

Commissioner, we're always looking into ways to be more sustainable as an organization. At this time, that would be streamed to the landfill. I think it's also important to balance the inputs that are required for natural turf versus synthetic turf.

That's right, those maintenance inputs, irrigation, and fertilization.

Commissioner, at this time, the Park Board has specified for any of our renewals or new synthetic turf fields to use an inert EPDM material. We have researched many of the different info materials as part of the sports field strategy. At this time, in our climate, in the Pacific Northwest, We know that those organic-derived materials, such as walnut shells and coconut-based small particles, they do not do well in our climate. We're certainly open to continuing to work with suppliers and benchmark with other municipalities to see if that material does perform. But at this time, we've done that extensive work to conclude that EPDM is the safest material. We certainly will not use any crumb rubber because of its toxic effects.

Yeah, that's very important to us as an organization. And as you know, we have environmental staff in-house. We will not be doing anything with our new construction that leads to the introduction of that material into waterways. So we're taking a number of measures. That will include storm scepters, collection devices with filters on them.

We will not be removing the snow off these fields. That's a major contributor to migration of that material. And we'll have mesh, again, around the perimeter. We'll have low curbs to contain that material. So any of these new facilities will be built with all best practices to reduce that migration.

We do have specific regulations in our specifications around where that material is sourced and our suppliers need to provide that. I don't have that at my fingertips tonight, Commissioner, but we can provide that as a follow-up.

Yeah, thank you for the question. So currently the concept design field size we're assuming will be 110 metres by 70 meters, which can accommodate the typical 100 meter by 64 meter standard playing field with a safety buffer. But we did want to note that in the concept design, you can see that a larger area is actually fenced beyond that field area. And that is to include additional fenced in space for warm up areas, storage, player benches, and to accommodate sort of flexibility in detail design with the appropriate sports field sizes.

Do you want to? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yes.

Do you have a? Yes.

Commissioner, I don't know that we would consider this a trade-off. This is an opportunity that we've partnered with engineering on, and it does prioritize Columbia. I know that we also have significant density coming to this neighborhood, so I think we would see it more as an opportunity than a trade-off.

So at this time, the displaced users would primarily be the ball players, softball, baseball. And we do intend to work closely with those groups as part of the allocation policy work to determine how we can accommodate them elsewhere.

I will ask our engineering staff that we have us here tonight to support us with that question. Thanks.

I'm just going to ask Rob Lukes to answer that question. Okay. He's online. Hello. Rob Lukes, I'm the Associate Director for Green Infrastructure and Engineering Services.

And these detention storage systems are designed to be around the same lifespan of the sewer system itself. So about 100 year lifespan.

I don't expect the turf system to ever be taken offline to maintain the tank. The access points would be off the field. And it also will include a manufactured treatment device. So there'll be an upstream system that is treating water before it goes into the detention tank. So that would be capturing a majority of the sediment before it gets into the tank. So that reduces the maintenance. within the storage underneath the fields. So the manufactured treatment device is more like the oversized manhole that could be on the edge of the park or even within the street.

So yeah, the detention tank, because it has a long lifespan, we can still use it to accommodate additional rainwater that we expect with climate change. We do continually work with Metro Vancouver on their infrastructure planning and capital planning. And so right now we're working with them on our healthy waters plan, which is helping prioritize where they do their sewer separation around the city on their trunks. And so this particular trunk is lower on their priority list. And so we're not sure of the exact timing. It's not within their

We would be telling them the flows that we would anticipate coming from our system so that they would be taking that into account.

Oh, and I will say, sorry, just one thing. Because the system is for stormwater, It shouldn't go into kind of their system. They just want to be managing a sanitary system. Once they separate their system, we anticipate that those drainage assets will actually end up belonging to the city of Vancouver at some point.

Thank you, Commissioner. We have submitted a referral on this project. We have submitted an update, and pending your decision tonight, we'll submit another update to the host nations, and that is the opportunity for the host nations to express what their expectations are for this project.

Commissioner, through our engagement, we typically don't ask specific questions or speak to those. We are aware of potential impacts with this, but at the time we did receive strong support for the improvements to this park. We also know that this is a very... changing neighborhoods. So the single family, you know, type of typology of housing you see there will look quite different. And there are already some towers that have been constructed within the last year or so. So we are aware that there will be initial peak periods of vehicle traffic. It's also important to note that we're in a major transit oriented development center. So we expect many people will be coming to this field using public transit as well.

There was not specific feedback, Commissioner. We'll also be going through a development permit process where the community will also have an opportunity to provide additional feedback.

Commissioner, it would be difficult to speculate on the future parking configuration, but should that community find that things were not meeting their expectations, they would have that ability. to connect with the City of Vancouver and potentially have parking regulations changed. We've got one addition in behind. Yes, Lon LeClair, General Manager of Engineering Services. Yeah, we're always adjusting parking regulations on the street actively when streets come under pressure. So when we start to see streets that are having excessive demand, then we bring in the regulations, and those are done in consultation with the adjacent businesses, users, and residents.

With respect to our on-street management, it's actually delegated to the city engineer. So all the changes that occur on streets related to regulation is very responsive. Changes, you know, every year. So it's kind of an ongoing commitment to kind of serve residents and businesses and adjacent users as best as we can.

Because we're changing the use of this field and erecting high-mass lighting, that typically does trigger development permits. So next steps will be working with our colleagues in engineering to put a scope of work out to public. And at that same concurrently, we'll be working with the Planning and Development Services Department on this development permit. Okay. So it could happen quite quickly.

Fine. Thank you. Yes, I will be supporting this park and field. This is a wonderful project. And we just don't have enough of those in Vancouver. We need to build more of them and we need to build them faster. These sports have been proven to be the best way to get people. away from their screen, especially the kids, and into good health. So I'm 100% behind this project.