Port Alberni is known as a great spot to raise a family. A key aspect of that is having safe spaces for kids to play.
While the city has been doing a great job of removing old, unsafe playgrounds – they seem to be skipping over the part where they replace them.
The city is reportedly letting its parks slowly disappear, and residents are speaking up about it.
Westport resident Cathy Casey wrote a letter to the council about how her neighbourhood parks are being left empty.
A small playground along Woodland Crescent was closed and fenced off at the end of 2022. The play equipment has now been removed for safety concerns.
This prompted Casey’s letter, but Woodland Crescent isn’t the only park left to sit empty.
Mayor Sharie Minions pointed out that Westporte has lost three different playgrounds in the last few years–North and South Westporte Parks and the River Road Park.
“I think Rainbow Gardens is a piece of that, for sure,” said Mayor Minions. “But there’s probably a bigger conversation around park replacement in that neighbourhood.”
The South Park was demolished to make way for Rainbow Gardens expansion back in 2016. Plans for the new development sounded great, including a playground and pickleball courts.
While the plans were great, there’s been no action.
In other areas, 11th Avenue Park and Kiwanis Park also had play equipment removed in 2020 for safety reasons.
Three years later, none of those structures have been replaced either.
Randy Fraser, a Westporte resident and former city employee, told Alberni Valley News that he feels the city has not been keeping up with maintaining equipment. When they’re forced to remove it, their new infrastructure promises are fruitless.
“The condition is just continually declining, and they’re not keeping up,” he explained.
The empty parks are also just one part of a bigger problem.
Fraser said that the city’s ball fields are just as in need of repair. He has also written to the city on more than one occasion about the state of the walking surface along the Kitsuksis Dyke.
“The existing assets we have are being neglected,” he said. “They need to be prioritized before they move onto new things.”
City staff say they’re working on a master parks plan, but this won’t come until after the city completes its updated Official Community Plan (OCP), set to be released sometime later in the year.
They aim to develop a maintenance timeline for all the city’s parks and green spaces.
For families in the area, that plan can’t come soon enough.
