05-24-2023, 07:07 AM
(05-23-2023, 09:22 PM)nms Wrote: How much would it cost the City to buy an equivalent land area of Victoria Park (~27acres) that was in the downtown core (or 5-10 minute walk from an LRT stop?). A overlooked cost in any new City facility is the cost of the land (which is why some of the Phase 2 LRT project cost is so high).
Are we stuck in an upwards spiral where rising land costs are forcing the City to raise development fees in part to pay for the land for the facilities?
Total land area as in multiple disconnected parcels? I dunno...100 million? 200? 300?A single contiguous parcel? Literally absolutely impossible...it would take eminent domain to achieve.
But Victoria Park is huge...there's no real need for additional parks to have that much space. While large parks are nice, small parks are still valuable. Most of the parks near us are small.
That being said, much of the city centre doesn't have much in the way of parks. What it does have is beautiful and quiet highly treed streets which basically serve the same function as parks (except for playgrounds, which are located in small parklets all around). The reason we want so many large parks is our streets are intolerably hostile to people.