North Glenmore sports fields to be converted to farmland
Baseball diamonds to be removed after end of this season
After the last bat is swung this season, cries of “play ball” will never be heard again at a popular recreation park in north Glenmore.
The backstops will be taken away, the infield removed and the trees cut down at the 2.8-hectare site next to the Glenmore fire hall.
The City of Kelowna, which owns the property at Valley Road and Scenic Road, will invite offers from farmers interested in making productive agricultural use of the sports fields.
“We’re not farmers ourselves, so we’ll lease out the land, and it could be used to grow hay, apples or some other kind of crop,” Andrew Gibbs, a city parks manager, said Tuesday.
The conversion of baseball diamonds to farmland was agreed to by the city as part of negotiations for the development of the new Glenmore Recreation Park, a 11.3hectare site at the corner of Valley Road and Longhill Road.
That property was within the Agricultural Land Reserve, and the provincial commission that oversees the reserve granted its exclusion in 2011 for development only on several conditions.
One of them was that the city turn the existing Glenmore ball diamonds into agricultural land by the end of 2017. Other stipulations included a landscaped buffer around the new recreation park to help protect existing farms, and a fence around the entire property.
In its decision to allow the exclusion, the Agricultural Land Commission said it was “encouraged by the city’s strong commitment to agriculture and the ALR, and its proactive and creative response to mitigation.”
Prior to the site’s exclusion from the land reserve, the city had long wanted to improve recreation facilities in Glenmore. The city has a goal of providing 2.2 hectares of park for every 1,000 residents, but Glenmore’s ratio was less than one-quarter of that.
Initial $2.6-million development plans for the new recreation park, presented at an open house last week, include two multi-use sports fields, site servicing, a parking lot, landscaping and fencing. It’s the single largest park-related undertaking this year.
Depending on future council decisions, it might also have a large indoor recreation complex, similar to Parkinson Recreation Centre.