As you know from my previous long post about proposed development of park space in the City of Port Alberni, the City is proposing to subdivide and offer for sale and development, a portion of 11th Avenue Park.
Here is that park:
As I stated previously, I believe this park is falls under Section 29 of the Community Charter which identifies, “Land in a municipality that is dedicated to the public for the purpose of a park or a public square by a subdivision plan, explanatory plan or reference plan deposited in the land title office is vested in the municipality for that purpose.”
Documents from the Land Title Office are publicly accessible (for a $15 fee). So, here is Subdivision Plan No 23217 relating to that property:
These can be a little hard to decipher, but notice that some of the lines are solid, and some are dashed. The solid lines mark the effective borders of a property. Dashed lines are original properties that are being changed by this plan. The letter “B” near the middle is the middle of the property, the park, that is created by this subdivision plan. It is bordered by solid lines at the bottom of lot 16 and 5, the bottom of the new Lot A, and the top of lot 1. “Lot A” at the top of the image is the School District 70 property and building that is also created by this plan.
The parcel now looks like this (below) in the Land Title Office’s Parcel Map software. Lot A (Parcel Name 004-080-122) is the open blue square and Lot B (parcel name 004-080-149) is the green area identified by this map as 11th Avenue Park.
I also happened to find an Alberni Valley Times article from May 1969:
This actually shows the time when Council approved the sale “of the northerly 80 feet of “Eleventh Avenue Park”” to the School District. Obviously the park was, and is, a park. The City would have then submitted the Plan 23217 to the Land Title Office which both created the new “Lot A” for the School District, and consolidated all of the other original properties into “Lot B” which formally created the space that is Eleventh Avenue Park.
Given all of that evidence, I think it is pretty clear that 11th Avenue park was “dedicated to the public for the purpose of a park or a public square by a subdivision plan” and so, under Section 27 of the Community Charter, has to go to a Referendum or Alternate Approval Process in order to be sold.
As I also showed in my previous post, 11th Avenue park is also designated as a park space in the Official Community Plan Bylaw, but I believe the fact that it has a specific subdivision plan related to it is the strongest evidence that it conforms directly to the requirement in the Community Charter.
At the very least, if the City is to act in Good Faith, it should treat Eleventh Avenue Park as if it is dedicated as such.
Notified the City
I’ve sent an email detailing all of this to the City and urging them to follow the process outlined in the Community Charter.
I believe it is very important to protect our park space for all generations of Port Alberni citizens.
The olden days — Kids at the park.
As an aside, the earliest mention of Eleventh Avenue Park that I could find online (there is probably more in the Library or the Archives) were these pictures from July 1968:
There are even some familiar community names in there including by coincidence perhaps councillor Corbeil? The names from the top picture are: “Steve Morgan, Ronny Corbeil, Dwayne Stern, David Shanks, Craig Ackland, Donald Dunbar, Leo Schann, Mark Powers, Dave Wilson, and Larry Wiwcharyk.”. A fun link to a current issue.
I hope people find this information useful. If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to leave them here or contact me. My details are near the bottom of this page.
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