Langara Golf Course will be getting an upgrade this year, but not the one Mayor Gregor Robertson was hoping for.
The Vancouver Park Board voted Monday to go ahead with a $3-million drainage upgrade to the course.
“If we had delayed making a decision until later into the summer, there’s no way that that work could even possibly be done this year and meanwhile, we’ve got a land that’s subject to sogginess and the site would continue to degrade, so I don’t think that’s fair to golfers,” commissioner Sarah Kirby-Yung said.
When a report on the maintenance was delivered to Vancouver city council last March, the mayor decided to suddenly propose the conversion of the golf course into a public park.
But Kirby-Yung says that wasn’t mentioned in last night’s meeting, and it probably won’t be for a while.
“For the mayor to bring forward a motion and ask for response back in a couple months with a plan for how the site could be used is totally nonsensical.”
Kirby-Yung says that’s not part of the board’s agenda.
“Something that would be a long-term, and should be a very robust public consultation, that would take years. And Langara may not be the right course to have that discussion on. You don’t make policy on the fly.”
Meantime, Kirby-Yung says the money for the drainage upgrade will come out of the golf reserve fund that players pay into.
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