Some students may have changed council’s mind.
A delegation of Quest University students made a presentation to Squamish council Tuesday about what Willow Park means to members of its surrounding community, and their project seems to have changed council’s perspective on the need to improve the park.
Some families in the Willow Park neighbourhood, which sits at the intersection of Mamquam and Government roads, have been advocating in recent months for the district to upgrade the park, where there’s only a swing set and small play structure, in the midst of a community that has seen population growth in recent years.
The students showed videos of interviews with parents and some children speaking about the park; some speakers complained it didn’t have enough play structures, others complained of dog excrement; others said the park lacks places for parents to sit. Most spoke of the space being underutilized.
The students’ professor is Kaija Belfry Munroe, a resident of the Willow Park neighbourhood.
“Because I see this as sort of an issue of democracy and an issue of justice and I happen to teach a class called that at Quest right now, I enlisted some help from my students to bring those voices to you,” she said.
“One of the issues about organizing in communities that are largely made up of young families and commuters is that it is really hard for people to have their voices heard because right now they are feeding their kids and putting them to bed and, during the day, they are doing childcare and doing multiple jobs.”
Student Georgia Williams said she was surprised at the interest in the park. “It wasn’t just one age range and just people with kids,” she said. “People with dogs use it and people with older kids wanted to use it. It is just a very valuable central part of the community, and it was surprising how many people use it for a different variety of things.”
Councillor Susan Chapelle praised the students’ work. “Willow Park is a really great example of how public spaces could be done better with places to sit and… you bring up some great points,” she said.
One video compared Willow Park to other parks in Squamish, such as the newly constructed park in the Hospital Hill neighbourhood that was mostly community-built and funded.
Councillor Karen Elliott said the videos helped council hear from residents. “This has been a really great example of what can happen when you actually go to where the people are and ask their opinion.”
Mayor Patricia Heintzman said council has been talking about parks in the current budget deliberations and looking at them through a different lens.
“I think your project has helped us,” she said. “Helped us understand and look differently at how we analyze our parks. So, previously we have set up a schedule, mostly from an insurance, progressive-upgrade point of view. We have said two parks a year we upgrade to this standard… Your project has highlighted that we need to look at density, look at the built environment around our parks and how they reflect in the needs of the park.”
Heintzman said sometime in January, council will make a budget decision on which parks will receive upgrades.
Belfry Munroe said she wants to see the space transformed so it works for the community around it. “Taking into account, yeah that there are a lot of children who just don’t have any other green space except for this one,” she said. “Try and see how can we make this the best community space ever and bring these people together and make it a growing, thriving place, which it isn’t. That is what I would like to see.”
