March 30, 2022

Public Golf Courses: Are They Future Park Land Banks?

Golf courses have come over scrutiny in the last decade as large reservoirs of space that could be used for more purposeful things, like parks and housing.

In the 21st century  question the use of golf courses in public ownership. In 2018 Vancouver’s three public golf courses brought in ten million dollars in revenue annually, with the Langara Golf course the weakest “link” at bringing in 25 percent of that revenue.

But the game of golf and making golf courses public was seen as important for health and equity decades ago.

Exactly one hundred years ago tuberculosis was a major issue in cities, with no cure except for exercise and getting people into cleaner breathing environments. Across the continent  public golf courses were perceived as a way to wipe out tuberculosis and strengthen lungs by offering children and families a way to be out in nature and walking.

Golf was accessible to anyone and offered through schools. The development of public golf courses  provided exercise and green salubrious environments to residents that had no option to leave the city where they worked or went to school. A good city was a city that planned for public golf courses, and major business leaders were backing and donating to those bids. Of course public golf courses also provided great attractions for the selling of lots and development beside these new amenities.

The Royal and Ancient. Golf 1925The Royal and Ancient. Golf 1925 01 May 1925, Fri The Province (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) Newspapers.com

Vancouver Viewpoint has previously described how the  City of Vancouver has clarified that the three private golf courses in Vancouver, at McCleery, Langara and Fraserview are classified as parks, and cannot be rezoned to uses other than parks without a majority of both the Parks Board and the City of Vancouver City Council affirming that. You can take a look at that report here.

A municipal golf course for Vancouver 1920 Jan 6 1920 Vancouver Sun

This report is important because it lays out exactly what a park is and how politically difficult it is to change  parks to another land use.

There has been some chat that public golf courses because they are golf courses are not parks. That is wrong. All three of the City of Vancouver golf courses are parks, and would revert to other park use if they went out of public golf course use.

As part of a densifying city, maintaining park space is important for recreational use today and also for future generations.

Permanent parks changing to other uses require resolutons from BOTH City Council and the Parks Board with two-thirds of members voting for the change.

Land designated as “temporary” public park requires solely two-thirds of Council members to vote in favour to revoke the park use. You can imagine how difficult reverting park land to other uses would be for Council to side with instead of keeping parks for future generations and instead densifying around parks.

Today the air in the city is cleaner, people have transit and other ways of mobility out of the city, and golf courses are not needed to strengthen children against tuberculosis. Who uses the public golf courses on a regular basis, are they for tourists or for citizens?

And how can they best serve a densifying city as places of green and respite?

Those are the questions that need to be answered in re-evaluating public golf courses to ascertain their best use as public park land in the 21st century.

 

 

images:Vanarchives,VanSun,Province

 

 

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Comments

  1. Public golf courses need to be converted to much needed parkland for _everyone_, not just for people of a single sport. Toronto has already opened it’s public courses for walks in the golf off-season, and is studying converting them into full time parks. Furthermore, golf’s popularity is in great decline, reducing usage. The time to open the courses to everyone is now.

    1. Vancouver public golf course usage last year was at record levels during the lockdown. It’s valuable recreation for seniors. They operate a profit which subsidizes all other recreation in the city. There is a lot to this debate.

      1. Point taken. Here in Toronto golf popularity is way down, and the debates on repurposing public courses to parks has reached city gov’t. As a former Victoria resident, I’m aware that demographics and climate likely play a significant role in the difference in golf’s popularity.

  2. While the COV may have protected parkland by making it difficult to change the use designation, it seems that parks are not nearly so protected in the rest of the province. Recently the Cowichan Valley Regional District decided to designate a small “park” for a parking lot for a nearby park (Kinsol Park). And at least one Supreme Court justice seems to have accepted that this is acceptable.

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