Royal Heights Veterans Memorial Park will be repaired and restored to all its former glory.
The water spray pad has been falling into disrepair for the past few years, and over the winter, wooden bridges that were part of the walking paths through the park had been destroyed. While that woodwork has been repaired, city council voted 6-1, during its regular meeting on April 13, to dedicate $250,000 to restore the rest of the park to its previous state.
The lone dissenter was Coun. Lori Carr, with her primary concern being the $140,000 cost to restore the spray park. She noted Padwick Park, which is now under construction by Trimount Developments in the Dominion Heights subdivision (and not far from Royal Heights), will be home to another spray park. The City will take ownership of that park a year after its completion. She said with those plans in the works, there may be an issue of duplicating services by restoring the spray park in Royal Heights.
She said there may be other, less expensive, options that could be looked into, which would provide people in that neighbourhood with a park they would be happy with, and she suggested if the City wished to add a second spray park, a different location, like somewhere in the southern half of the city, would “spread the services around” to provide access to more Estevan children.
A report to City council from City manager Amber Smale and parks manager Rod March noted that the renaming of Royal Heights earlier this year to include “Veterans Memorial,” and allowing the Estevan Legion to erect a memorial monument in the park, may be a trend to develop Royal Heights with Estevan’s older population in mind.
Considerations with that plan in mind are evident in that the existing park is adjacent to St. Joseph’s Hospital as well as the proposed new nursing home.
“The concept to remove the spray park fits well into the future demographics of the area,” read the report.
The spray park at Royal Heights was built in 1993, and it hasn’t been functional for the last two to three years.
As part of the repairs, the gazebo will be redone, and that work will include a new foundation. The pathways will be repaved in 2016. That work will be put off to next year, until after all other construction is complete so that any equipment in the park causes no damage to a new pathway.
Coun. Dennis Moore said he supported restoring the park fully because “the people who live over there would expect us to do so.”
Coun. Greg Hoffort agreed, adding that he is looking forward to seeing other green space projects in the city.
“It would be great for the community to start seeing some progress in this regard,” he said.
Coun. Brian Johnson said, “All those features were there and they are slowly getting depleted and taken away from us all this time. I think if we turn our backs on it, we’re turning our backs on maintenance of our assets.”
Coun. Kevin Smith disagreed with Carr’s assertion that repairing the water portion of the park would create a duplication of services because of the new Padwick Park development and its close proximity to Royal Heights. He said Estevan may be in a position, considering its population and demographics, where it could benefit from two of these services in order to provide for public demands.
Smith said his biggest concern was where the money would come from as it had not been budgeted previously.
“This is a shift in priorities,” said Smith.
Mayor Roy Ludwig said the city manager will be providing a recommendation as to where the City can draw the necessary funds.
