Community members rally at Loudon Park, hoping to save the trees

Geselbracht said the biggest effects of the new building will be the loss of public green space in the park. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

Following a City of Nanaimo council vote to spend over $10.8 million to redevelop Loudon Park, community members gathered at the park hoping the City would stop the project.

On April 7th, city council voted to approve a project to redevelop an area of Loudon Park located on Long Lake. This decision came after a vote at a Finance and Audit Committee meeting on March 19 to refer to council a comparatively pared-down $6.5 million option. 

But at the council meeting, the vote was changed in favour of the option to spend $10.8 million for a new 10,000 square foot boat storage building that would include new public washrooms, and a community meeting space. The building would also feature a training facility for the Long Lake Flat Water Training Society.  

Council voted in favour 5-4 for the project. Councillors who voted in favour were Sheryl Armstrong, Janice Perrino, Tyler Brown, Ian Thorpe, and Mayor Leonard Krog.

Many community members were concerned with the project as the new space would take up a significant area of the small park and remove 29 mature trees.

Following the vote, a group of about 75 concerned citizens took to Loudon Park on a very windy Saturday on April 19, to rally in support of the park.

Community members and people living near the park started the rally by using flagging tape to mark out the space the boathouse would take up. They also placed sad faces on the 29 trees that would be cut down for the building.

One of the main speakers of the event was City of Nanaimo councillor Ben Geselbracht, who voted against the project and was vocal about the effects the new boathouse could have on the park.

He said that the upgrades to the boathouse have been in the works with the city council since the early 2000s. 

He said the biggest effects of the new building will be the loss of public green space in the park.

“Now, I really, truly believe that council wasn't fully aware of the footprint of this building, and I have faith that there will be reconsideration,” Geselbracht said. “But the issue is that the decision was made not really listening to the wider public or really engaging in a meaningful way with the actual details of the plan.”

According to the City of Nanaimo, the city first started getting community feedback for a proposed new boathouse in 2009 and 2010, with a design announced in 2019 and updated following community feedback in 2021. 

Geselbracht said he is supportive of the local rowing club getting a new building and said he was supportive of this building plan until he heard from residents in 2021 about the effects it would have on the space of the park.

“So we said, ‘staff, please go away and look at other alternatives. One, it's unacceptable, the footprint, and two, this is just too crazy expensive,’” Geselbracht said. “Staff went away, didn't hear anything about it for two, three years, and then about two months ago, [the plan] came back to council.”

Geselbracht explained that when committee members first voted at the Finance and Audit Committee meeting on March 19, there were three options they could have chosen from, with the committee favouring two of the options.

The first option was the current approved plan for the park, and the second option was to build the new boat storage where the current space is. The second option would only cost the city about $6 million while supplying the same amount of space for the boat storage as the first option would.

“So $10.8 [million] for the big deal [option one], and [option two] was $6 million,” Geselbracht said. “I'm like, ‘okay, this is a no-brainer,’ then, to my shock, council voted to go with the big deal one, and I was beside myself. I actually got quite upset and angry in the council meeting.”

According to Geselbracht, for the city to reconsider a vote, a council member who voted in favour of the motion would need to bring it back to council.

Following the city council vote on April 7 to move forward with the $10.8 million boathouse, CHLY’s Joe Pugh spoke with city councillor Janice Perrino, who voted in favour of the more expensive boathouse.

Perrino was originally in favour of the $6 million option at the earlier Finance and Audit Committee meeting on March 19, until she changed her vote in favour of the $10.8 million project at a city council meeting on April 7.

She told CHLY that her reasoning was that Long Lake is unlike any of the other lakes in Nanaimo due to how long it is.

“So people from the rowing club and the canoe and kayak club, they can really do the training and the racing and the lessons that they need to do, just because of the shape of the lake. So it's been popular for about least 20 years,” Perrino said.

While Perrino admitted she voted in favour of the more expensive option under the misconception that it would have more boat storage, now knowing the two options would have the same amount of storage, she stays firm in her choice.

“I mean, I have to say in the end, at the very final vote, I could have gone with my original what I had decided at the Finance and Audit meeting, but once I heard councillor Brown, councillor Thorpe and the mayor, I decided to go with them on their vote,” Perrino said. “I felt they were very familiar with the area. It's a tough one, I admit, and I was very disappointed that the staff member didn't have the correct information, because I might have had different comments, but in the end, I think I would have voted the way I did.”

Heather Baitz, a member of the Rock City Neighbourhood Association and one of the organizers of the event, spoke to the crowd. She shared the importance the park has for her and her family.

“For me, Loudon Park is part of my family's life. We live nearby, and I'm thinking about a day last summer when we came here. It was three generations; there was me, there was my daughter, who was six then, and my mom,” Baitz said. “My daughter had just learned to ride her bike without training wheels, and we were up for an adventure. So we hopped on our bikes and we pedalled on down to Long Lake, and we enjoyed the beach. We sat in the shade, we ate ice cream from Burnt Honey, and it was a really great day.”

She said she was pleased to first hear about the much-needed upgrades to the boathouse and rowing clubhouse, but it wasn’t until she saw the blueprint for the new building that she realized how much it would change the park.

“This proposal doesn't just add a building, it replaces the park. It replaces the trees, the shade, an open, accessible space with something that is only serving a small portion of the community,” Baitz said. “For the rest of us–the picnickers, the dog walkers, the kids with the bikes, the families–it's a loss. It's a huge loss for us.”

Baitz told the crowd that now is the time to stand up and speak for the community.

Baitz told CHLY after the event that they will be speaking at a city council meeting on May 5 as a delegation to encourage the mayor and council to re-examine their decision for the park.

She encourages those supporting the park to come in attendance of the meeting.

With files from Joe Pugh – Midcoast Morning.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.