Jim Lorimer Park to receive upgrades to reduce flooding

Last October, the Gilmore area experienced extensive flooding that damaged infrastructure, left residents without power for several days, and turned streets into flowing rivers, among other effects. A less-reported consequence of the widespread flooding was the closure of the area’s local playground, Jim Lorimer Park. 

Jim Lorimer Park and the surrounding developments were built in a flood-prone area. The park is adjacent to Still Creek, a shallow waterway that often fills up with water and overflows during storms. As with many playgrounds, the infrastructure is mostly wood, and frequent flooding has led to extensive damage to the playground structures, rendering them unsafe for children’s use. The city closed the playground in October 2024 after the atmospheric river event that flooded the entire area.

“By 2017, the larger playground for the older kids had been decommissioned, and all that remains are some upright wooden things that have been there since 2017. So that’s seven years,” said resident Martin Kendell. “I brought it to their attention in about 2020-2021, around COVID, about the smaller playground, and that parts of it were basically rotting out and were structurally unsound. I presented it to the parks department for the City of Burnaby. They were actually quite receptive, and the repairs were done quite quickly, which was really nice to see. That being said, though, the park floods about once or twice a year, and now it’s gotten to the point where the smaller playground is now structurally unsound, and they put a bunch of metal gates around it, and kids can’t use it now.”

Upgrades have been planned for the Jim Lorimer Park for several years. In mid-2023, the city launched a public engagement survey to gather feedback from community members about the playground. While Kendell said it is good that the city’s webpage about the project is finally showing progress in the design phase, the community has not heard back from the city about the design’s details. 

“They consulted with the community to ask what we wanted. They were supposed to present it forward, and then, you know, my understanding is that we would get one more chance to say yes, this works, or this doesn’t work,” Kendell said. “We haven’t seen what the plan is. I think that’s the missing part right here.”

The playground is vital to many residents in the community who have few alternatives for their children to have an open space to play, especially with most residents nearby living in apartments with little access to outdoor spaces. 

“You’ve got to go up a pretty steady grade, up to Willingdon Heights, which, if you have smaller kids, it’s not exactly the best thing. Then you have Broadview Park over by Gilmore and Canada Way, but you have to manoeuvre yourself along that narrower sidewalk over Highway One there; not exactly the best thing to do again if you have small kids,” Kendell said. “So, yeah, in this neighbourhood, we’ve had a lot of families move in, and a lot of them with smaller kids, and now we’re in a situation where there might not be a park in this neighbourhood for at least a year.”

Kendell, who has small children, knows the challenges of finding safe outdoor playgrounds nearby for his kids. With Lorimer Park closed, they have few choices, all farther away and harder to reach. 

“We generally use Willingdon Heights Park now because it’s close to the school that they go to. That being said, during the summer Jim Lorimer was definitely one of the places that we could go,” Kendell said. “It’s a five-minute walk, and it’s a relatively safe walk because you have the sidewalk that’s separated from the road there. It’s a nice little nature area, which is really nice because you can occasionally see some ducks and other animals.”

However, the flooding and budget constraints mean the situation is more complicated now. According to Andre Isakov, the city’s director of parks, recreation, and culture planning, the city first needs to discuss budget issues. 

Burnaby recently lost a major source of income from development projects due to the provincial government’s zoning legislation, which came into effect in June 2024. This income was previously allocated to projects such as playgrounds, recreation centres, and other projects important to the community. Recently, the city announced it would cancel the Confederation Park Community Centre project due to funding constraints. 

“The climbing structures are going to be all brand new. There’s going to be swing sets, there’s going to be an upgraded sand play area,” Isakov said. “And we’re also going to introduce a shade structure to provide some shade, particularly closer to the toddler play area.” 

In the case of Jim Lorimer Park, the park will need extensive upgrades to mitigate the flooding problem. 

“We are proposing to raise the elevation of the playground to protect the play structure as we’re making a pretty substantial investment in the playground itself, so want to make sure that the playground itself isn’t continually flooded,” Isakov said. “We also want to balance that with trying to protect as many of the existing trees as possible. So we are trying to limit the elevation increase as much as possible to the playground itself.”

Isakov said the city has not yet decided on the budget for the playground and will decide during its upcoming budget meeting in March. 

“This is really all dependent more largely on the budget deliberations, but the construction window would mean it would probably take something like six to eight months, which is pretty typical for us,” Isakov said. 

At the same time, Metro Vancouver will be working with the city on the wider problem of flooding in the area, an expensive, difficult situation, as the Beacon covered in a previous article. 

When the project finally comes to fruition, residents can expect exciting upgrades, including a rubberized surface like the one at Lobley Park, new swing sets, and other structures. However, when that will happen will depend on many factors, and with economic and climatic uncertainty in Burnaby and Canada at large, residents may have to wait a bit longer than expected. 

This piece was made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

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