Regina's first parks plan lays out foundation for sustainability: director
A new vision for public parks across Regina is on the horizon with the long-awaited introduction of the city's first Parks Master Plan on Wednesday.
Executive committee voted 6-0 in favour of endorsing the plan, which will seek final approval from city council on May 8.
Autumn Dawson, director of planning and development services, began by reminding the room that work on this strategy has been ongoing since 2021, shortly after the current sitting council was elected.
“It's really intended to provide a path forward to improve, develop and sustain our park system,” she said.
The plan is a companion to the Recreation Master Plan and the Adapted Recreation Plan, with its pillars built on Regina parks being sustainable, inclusive and connective to nature and the community.
The final draft was completed after staff collected 2,400 responses from the general public in two online surveys, held 16 stakeholder engagement sessions, and sought insight from elders and knowledge keepers through the city's Indigenous Relations department.
Three strategic priorities are to adapt park management to the realities of climate change, add more vegetative diversity and increase four-season use of public parks.
Regina has a total of 318 public parks, making up more than 13 square kilometres of green space, plus the 930-hectare Wascana Centre separate from the city's system.
Goals for the next five years include a 10-per-cent reduction in water usage for maintenance by 2027 and increasing the amount of natural park acres from the current 12 per cent to 25 per cent by 2028. “This is something we heard is (the importance of ) telling Regina's story inside Regina's parks,” said Chris Sale, coordinator of stakeholder relations. “(Members of the public) want to see more naturalized areas and they want to use those areas.”
Maintenance practices would shift immediately after the plan's approval to curate more natural growth along creeks, channels and storm ponds, as opposed to manicured greenery.
Sale named spots like the Wascana Creek flood plain, Pilot Butte Creek and Chuka Creek as examples, and the city's multi-use pathway as an unofficial border between this natural state and more trimmed areas. Answering a question from Coun. Bob Hawkins ( Ward 2), Sales said it's possible to meet this target without reducing the presence of urbanized parks that people are used to enjoying.
“We can achieve all of this within the space we have, but without losing any manicured elements,” he said. “The purpose of naturalization is multifold, and one of those purposes is to enhance opportunity for recreation” like birdwatching, he continued.
It also improves soil health and water run-off, plus more grasslands and urban forests offer a level of carbon sequestration which aligns with Regina's larger goal of being carbon neutral by 2050.
Action to begin this year will include commissioning a condition assessment and a natural area inventory of all city parkland, and adding a city naturalist to the parks maintenance department.
Also fresh would be new planting standards and updating the park naming policy to reflect inclusion of the Indigenous community.
Future plans lay out potentially allowing food trucks in public parks, improving washroom access and lighting, and adding “pocket parks” — small one-lot green spaces — to more neighbourhoods.
Other targets include planting 25 fruiting trees and 50 fruiting shrubs per year in 2025 onward, updating the urban forest management strategy to address the 1,000 tree vacancies, and adding more interpretive signage in park corridors.
“The goal of this is to make moves in the landscape that we can clearly communicate to the public,” Sales said.