A Vancouver Park Board commissioner is calling for a “deep dive” into the city’s golf facilities.
Green Commissioner Dave Demers is proposing a motion to have city staff conduct a full review of the city’s three public “championship” courses and three pitch and putt courses.
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“It’s basically a benefits analysis of using the park land we use at the moment for golf, about 460-some acres,” Demers said.
“I want to see if staff can draw a comprehensive picture of everything we put into that park land to make golf happen, what we get out of it … and what I call the unrealized benefits: what we are missing out on, if anything, by having golf and little else on those acres.”
Demers said data shows declining attendance at the city’s courses, with about 31 per cent fewer rounds being played in recent years compared to a five-year period in the 1990s.
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He said by comparison, the city’s other parks and community centre facilities are either at capacity or close to capacity.
Demers acknowledged there would be “pushback” when the motion goes to the park board on Monday, but said he’s open to a variety of ideas for the courses and not necessarily calling for them to be repurposed.
Those could include lowering fees for youth to increase attendance, or closing courses like Langara in the winter when attendance is low, to allow other activities on the property.
“Golf’s not going anywhere. I am not trying to get golf out of that park land. What I’m trying to do is draw a better picture to see what we’re working with,” he said.
“An attack on golf”
But Non-Partisan Association (NPA) Commissioner John Coupar said it’s clear to him the motion is “an attack on golf.”
Coupar said the city’s golf courses, like its other facilities, fulfill one of the board’s key goals by allowing average people to participate in activities they might not normally be able to afford.
“Take for example our community centres, our swimming pools and our outdoor pools and our rinks,” he said. “The reason we have those is so the average person doesn’t have to join the Arbutus Club to participate in those sports.”
Coupar said the courses also act as the city’s “aquifer and lungs,” and are designed to appeal to non-golfers as well.
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“One of the things the park board has been really good at over the years is integrating these courses into other activities. For instance, they all have pretty extensive walking trails, they’re all Audobon-certified so people are bird watching,” he said.
Coupar said the motion, if passed, would be a waste of staff time and resources, which he argued could be better used on figuring out how to enhance existing facilities.
It’s not the first time civic politics and golf have clashed in Vancouver.
Last year, then-mayor Gregor Robertson stirred controversy when he used a maintenance report on drainage for the Langara course to propose it be turned into a park.
Demers said his motion is different from Robertson’s, saying it was about the park board taking a close look at its own facilities and coming up with a long-term game plan.
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