Vancouver park board eyes planning Queen Elizabeth park's future
Credit to Author: Joanne Lee-Young| Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 00:00:09 +0000
The Vancouver park board will consider developing a master plan for Queen Elizabeth Park.
The major public space, known for its mountain views and gardens, hasn’t changed much in decades, even as the surrounding Cambie Corridor area has experienced an explosion of townhouse and condo construction, and there will be more population growth in years ahead.
City staff are asking park board chair and commissioners to consider putting together a team that would, starting in mid-2020, begin talking to the public and outline future needs of the park.
In a letter to the park board for its meeting next week, board general manager Malcolm Bromley wrote about “significant changes to the Cambie Corridor, including the opening of the Canada Line in 2009 and the subsequent rezoning and densification of surrounding neighbourhoods.
“The majority of new and anticipated development around Queen Elizabeth Park consists of multi-unit residential buildings with little or no access to their own outdoor spaces,” he said.
Queen Elizabeth Park “needs to adapt and respond to an ever-changing context and consider how it will serve a rapidly growing neighbourhood of new and local park users.”
“I think it’s a great idea. The park has developed in sections over time,” said park board commissioner John Coupar, who has long been involved with the park’s Bloedel Conservatory. “I think there’s a lot to think about. There’s no children’s playground, for example, which is a little odd.”
The Cambie Corridor Plan, adopted in 2018, includes a 30-year vision for a shift from what was mainly a single-family home area to one where there are now many more mid-rise residential buildings along Cambie Street, as well as major nearby arterials such as 25th Avenue and 41st Avenue.
The plan also includes a new municipal town centre at Oakridge Centre, which is undergoing a massive renovation. Bloomberg News recently put its 28.5 acres into context, saying it’s “set to be as big as New York’s Hudson Yards, the largest private real estate development in North America.”
In total, said Bromley’s letter, the Cambie Corridor is expected to grow by more than 55,000 people by 2040, making it the second largest increase expected in the city after the downtown area.
Bromley wrote that a master plan would need to take into account key issues, including the park’s connection to the cultural history of the city, its role in providing access to nature and, since it sits at the city’s geographic centre, how it might be used to connect other public and recreational spaces.
“Currently, the park has no single discernible internal trail system. Mass sections of the park are perceived as disconnected from one another. Wide and steep roadways originally designed for automobile movement are inadequate for pedestrians or cycling,” wrote Bromley.