It has been over 10 years in the making, but work is underway on a new community park in the Mission.
Mayor Tom Dyas, council members, city staff, guests and teachers, and students from Anne McClymont Elementary attended a ground-breaking ceremony on Apr. 24 at 687 DeHart Road, the park’s location.
“This new park will provide opportunities, and connection and help build stronger communities,” Days said. “It will be a welcoming community space for neighbours, families, sports enthusiasts, and for your family dogs.”
Kelowna Mayor Tom Dyas speaks at a ground-breaking ceremony for a new community park on DeHart Road in the Mission. pic.twitter.com/VlSWqsrZPy
— Gary Barnes (@GaryBarnes97912) April 24, 2024
The park will include a dog park, trail network, multi-use field, sports courts, a pump track, a splash park, a playground, a parkour area, and the current community garden, which will be relocated on-site.
“What we have hopefully brought to the community is a park that looks to the future, but also for the community to find something to come and recreate,” said Derek Edstrom, divisional director of partnerships and investments.
Dyas noted the new park is an important project that has been on the books for over a decade.
While the city already owned some of the parklands, other lands had to be purchased from homeowners.
“We were waiting for them to be comfortable with their plans moving forward. Once they were comfortable they opened up the ability to look at purchasing the land.”
Cadre Simpson is a parks and landscape planner with the city and the park architect. She said there have been different iterations of the plan over the years.
“In 2010 there was an extensive community engagement to see what the community wanted. When I came onto the project two years ago, I had that as an outline and some of those elements are the same.”
Simpson added the design will preserve and enhance natural open spaces and existing trees and add a dryland meadow.
The $8.6 million project will take approximately a year to complete.
Funding came from the Parks Development Cost Charges Program established in 2019.
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