Burnaby residents will vote on dedicating more park land in the city this October

Alongside the usual list of candidates for city council on the ballot, Burnaby residents will be asked another question in this October’s municipal election: do they support the transformation of 204.5 acres of city-owned land into protected park land?

A ballot referendum will poll residents on a new park dedication bylaw that would preserve several parcels of land around Burnaby Lake Park, the Cariboo and Brunette River Conservation Lands, Deer Lake Park, and Stoney Creek Park and trail system.

It’s not the first time the question has appeared on ballots in Burnaby—in fact, it’s happened during elections in 1990, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2011, and 2014.

“A total of 2,983.09 acres (1,207.21 hectares) have been dedicated for park and public use since 1990,” reads a report from general manager of parks and recreation Dave Ellenwood.

That’s not an insignificant portion of Burnaby’s vast green spaces, which comprise more than 5,486 acres—or just under 25% of the city’s total area.

And in past years, Burnaby residents have enthusiastically agreed with the proposed dedications.

“I haven’t seen the level of approval dropped below the 90 percentile ever. So it’s always a very favourable ‘yes’ vote,” Ellenwood told the Beacon.

The 204.5 acres of land we’ll be polled on this year is a slightly larger amount than in past elections—that’s partially because it’s been eight years since the last set of park land dedications. The properties in question are mostly ones that the city has acquired since then.

The second step, dedication, is done with the intention of protecting and preserving Burnaby’s already vast greenspace—meaning that they can only be used in “that narrow range of uses” set aside for park land.

“So if the city wants to change that, they have to go back to the electorate and say, and ask them to allow that. Now with a 90 percentile of acceptance for that particular use—it would be a real tough go. It would have to be something that would be as acceptable as park land for the electorate. I can’t imagine what that would be,” Ellenwood said.

“But that’s the reason it’s done by referendum, by the voters, is that we have to go back to the voters [to remove park dedication], and the competing land use has to be as acceptable to them as putting it into parks. So in that sense, it’s pretty powerful protection.”

Meanwhile, the city is also examining the possibility of designating some forested—and as yet undeveloped—land in the Cariboo Heights area to park and public use as well.

Those parcels of land are currently under residential zoning, which means that they could be developed if there was interest in doing so.A report to council earlier this month says there are some pockets of old-growth forest in the area, along with waterways that feed into the Brunette River and provide habitat for protected species like the Washington snowshoe hare and northern red-legged frog.

Trees and greenspace also have an important part to play in the fight against climate change—and in the more frequent reality facing British Columbia, of extreme heat.

A paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that tree canopy can significantly lower air temperatures in urban neighbourhoods on extremely hot days.

The city is expected to release its Urban Forest Management Strategy sometime this summer, which will include developing a tree canopy map and boulevard tree inventory. The strategy will set a canopy target and establish an annual tree planting program.

Ellenwood said the city is aware that its forested areas—including the lands proposed for dedication—can make it easier to weather extreme heat events like last weekend’s heat wave, or the heat dome that killed more than 70 Burnaby residents last year.

“[It is] a priority for our council. And it’s demonstrated by the fact that we do have the most—in terms of percentage of our city’s property in parkland—the most of any other Lower Mainland municipality. And we’re at 25%,” he said.

“So this dedication is intended to keep those lands as park for those purposes. … One is to allow people to passively use these for respite [from the heat] and to to gain shade. Others are for just oxygen, and habitat, and all the other good things that parks provide. So I think our city has been a leader in that regard, and we intend to keep doing that.”

Burnaby residents will head to the polls on October 15, 2022.