Gibsons residents will soon have another chance to weigh in on a master plan for the future of Winegarden Park.
The changes to the waterfront park are being driven, at least partly, by the George Hotel and Residences, which is slated to be built on a neighbouring lot, and the developer is contributing to the park project as part of its amenities agreement with the Town.
Planner Andre Boel briefed councillors last week on the concept created with the help of a special Winegarden Park advisory committee and landscape architect Pat Campbell. The committee based its work on responses from a survey conducted earlier this year to get some idea of what people might like to see at the park.
One of the most obvious changes would be relocating the stage from its current spot in a corner of the park to a central location. It would also be raised to allow storage and changing rooms underneath. The seating areas would vary from structured, steep seating close to the stage to tiered grass and a gentle slope as you move up toward Gower Point Road.
The other significant change would be right at the waterfront. The draft master plan calls for removal of the wall at the edge of the seawalk to allow for “green shores” landscaping that would re-establish a more natural shoreline.
Mayor Wayne Rowe said while he likes that approach, which falls in line with what the Town is trying do in other waterfront areas like Armours Beach, he’s worried it could take too much land out of the existing park.
Boel said that a similar concern came up during the committee’s discussions, but overall they saw it as an improvement over the built-up seawall that’s there now. “They see the natural shoreline as part of the park, it’s part of the natural environment that would be created in the park and right now you can’t really get to the water because the wall separates the park in a hard and definite way from the foreshore.”
Coun. Charlene San Jenko, meanwhile, said she’s happy to see the main focus of the park as a performance space continue, because it would balance the different goals that are emerging for Armours Beach and Dougall Park.
“I hope as we keep planning that we can maximize how we wish to use [all] the parks, because if we keep blurring things with all uses for all things it gets a bit fuzzy,” she said. “When I look at this [plan] I appreciate that it looks like this is a performance park, that’s the purpose of it, although there’s still green space.”
Town staff are now going out to residents for comments on the draft master plan, and looking to set a time for a public meeting, likely at the park itself.
One thing that won’t be clear for a while is the potential cost of following through on the master plan. The contribution from the George developer will be about $100,000. CAO Emanuel Machado also noted for councillors that “one of the obligations of the developer is to restore areas of the park, post-construction, so that the park is usable.”
