Disc golf club eyes Burnaby’s Central Park forest as location of proposed new course

The Burnaby Disc Golf Club has its eyes set on Central Park as the location for a new disc golf course, and city councillor Sav Dhaliwal says the parks and recreation commission will be on board—if there are no environmental impacts to the park.

Disc golf is a game played with essentially the same concept as regular golf, except players try to toss a frisbee into a basket from a distance rather than hitting a ball into a hole.

There is already one disc golf course operational at Robert Burnaby Park, and the club told the parks and recreation commission in November that that course has become more crowded as disc golf gains popularity in the Lower Mainland.

The course at Robert Burnaby is free, and non-players can also walk through the course—if the course at Central Park goes ahead, it will operate in the same way.

“Staff feels that the way Robert Burnaby Park has worked—it has been reasonably well used, it’s not much of an impact on the park itself, [there are] not many people, so it’s just people walking through a park,” Dhaliwal told the Beacon last week.

“So that experience has been good for us, and for the users, the game players, it was for them. And of course, [one of the aims and objectives of] the city’s parks and recreation commission is to have people engaged as much as possible in recreational activity, walking, and enjoying.”

A report from staff notes that the club has proposed two possible sites in Central Park for a new 18-hole course.

Location One is the southwest corner of the park, off Boundary Road and Imperial Street.

​​The report notes that portion of the park, however, is saturated with water for the majority of the year and will require drainage if it is to operate as a manicured golf course area. It also serves as support space for events run out of the nearby Swangard Stadium “such as dog agility competitions, overflow camping for 24 hours relays, volleyball tournaments and other interim uses.”

Location Two would be a portion of the forested area along Patterson Ave, just next to Patterson Skytrain Station, and would allow for a forested course with natural obstacles similar to the one already in place at Robert Burnaby Park.

“My first question was that, no I don’t think that’ll work, because it’s a forested area, there’s no way you’re going to take any trees down, we’re planting more trees etc. I thought, you know, why don’t we stick to the west side because there’s no trees there,” Dhaliwal said.

“But it turned out that … the only thing we do is generally clear the underbrush a little bit … other than that, there’s not very much. They’re not going to be detrimental to the surface or the trees, the roots or anything like that.”

The report says that the potential of tree removal at Location Two would be greater than at Location One, although there would be no program displacement.

“A site specific assessment of the footprint area will be undertaken to determine the tree removals required and impact of introducing manicured golf greens into the forest setting,” the report reads.

Central Park’s second growth forest, first logged in the 19th century, houses towering Douglas firs, cedars, pines, and more, and represents a rare remnant of Metro Vancouver’s original temperate rainforest ecosystem.

The pocket of forested land being considered for the disc golf course comprises about 32,700 square metres.

Dhaliwal said staff will be reporting back to council on the results of the environmental assessment and will consider other factors too, such as the feasibility and cost of the project—which won’t be enormous, he noted.

Residents will also be surveyed on their feelings about the project.

Dhaliwal said his priority, however, is making sure that there is no impact to Central Park’s trees.

“I wouldn’t support it [if trees need to be removed]. We will certainly try to find another space for them. It has to have no impact on the ecosystem. If it’s a little bit of an inconvenience for people when they’re playing, with some people going by, that’s understandable—we all share the space. But if it has some concern by the public on what’s being proposed, I would not push this one forward,” he said.

“We haven’t really looked all through the city. … We can take our time to find another suitable place that wouldn’t require removal of trees. That was one of the first questions—I didn’t want any trees removed.”