Jan 11, 2011 | By-laws, Skateboarding, Skateparks
Calgary maps out strategy for more skateboard parks
City staff will forge ahead with developing a skateboarding strategy because facilities for the sport have fallen well behind demand.
Officials will have almost a year to complete the plan, with a recent report suggesting the number of skateboarding enthusiasts in the city numbers in the tens of thousands.
Right now, there are just three skate parks in Calgary, a far cry from the nine — including two indoor facilities — in Edmonton.
The effort to develop a strategy is good news to one skateboarder. Trevor Morgan, with the Calgary Association of Skateboarding Enthusiasts, envisions regional skate park hubs in the city, with smaller parks scattered around.
“These youth just want to be active, that’s the bottom line,” he said. “And if we give them the right venue to do that, and integrate it in the right way, and make sure the public understands it, then you get a really successful space where youth interact with everyone else.”
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Jan 5, 2011 | By-laws, Skateparks
City rolls forward on skateboard park consultation
By RENATO GANDIA, CALGARY SUN
The wheels are moving to find ways to build more city skateboard parks.
The city’s Community and Protective Services committee Wednesday endorsed administration’s recommendation to involve not just the members of the Calgary Association of Skateboarding Enthusiasts (CASE) but the public to determine how the city can provide more skateboard facilities.
Trevor Morgan, who is affiliated with CASE, said the city needs to catch up with the overwhelming demand for skateboard parks.
Calgary has one large concrete park – Shaw Millennium – and two small modular parks.
In 2008, it was estimated Calgary had some 36,000 skateboarding enthusiasts, but that count is believed to have increased.
Morgan, a life-long skateboarder and long-time city resident, said he hopes the municipality is able to pave the way for catching up with the demand with facilities in four quadrants.
“There’s a need to satisfy the demand for safe, accessible recreational opportunities for skateboarding communities,” he said.
City administration has until December to report back to the committee on the public’s take on more parks.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi asked bureaucrats at the meeting why the process is taking about a year to complete.
General manager Erika Hargesheimer said the broader community needs to be involved in the process by giving their reactions on the idea of building skateboard parks in their areas, and such consultation takes time.
The city also needs to figure out how to finance the project if council decides to build more parks, she said.
Jan 3, 2011 | By-laws, Politics, Skateboarding, Skateparks
Today both the Calgary Herald and the Calgary Sun have articles about the need for more skateparks. Here is the one from the Herald:
“On a sunny day, Shaw Millennium Park will draw skateboarders from every corner of Calgary.
It’s not just that there’s no finer place for the kick-flip crowd. Beyond downtown’s skateboarding haven there’s virtually nowhere else in the city to skate, at least legally.
That made it a half-hour drive for Steven Hall and his trick-loving 10-year-old son from Sundance in Calgary’s deep south. Or longer, for those who rely on transit.
“It might have been smarter to put in four smaller parks in the four corners of the city, like in the leisure centres,” Hakl said.
More than a decade after opening Shaw Millennium Park, the city is acknowledging in a new report the skater-filled suburbs deserve one new mid-size skate park in every city quadrant.
The document notes that Calgary also has two smaller skate parks at McKenzie Towne and the west-side recreation centre – as well as three portable parks it shifts around the city. But that’s a dismal tally compared to smaller prairie cities such as Edmonton (11 parks), Winnipeg (8) and Saskatoon (6), to say nothing of Greater Vancouver (18).
Calgary has only one permanent skate park for every 360,000 people, compared with Medicine Hat’s two large parks for its population of 61,000.
“The development of skate parks in Calgary has fallen behind demand, and given the rapid increase in population in the past five years, this gap has grown exponentially,” says the report, which goes to a council committee Wednesday.
In addition to four “regional” parks each nearly a half-acre large, the paper suggests smaller community-sized parks throughout the city.
It recommends private fundraising and partnerships to help the city afford new parks. But instead of offering a price tag or timeline, the paper proposes a fuller strategy by the end of 2011.
Ald. Andre Chabot, whose daughter grew up an avid skateboarder, agreed the limited number of parks has been a disservice for young skaters.
“So they end up using all kinds of different places that were not designed for that and probably not safe,” he said, listing Olympic Plaza and business’ staircases as those venues.
Skate parks would be a great fit in new southeast and northwest recreation complexes that are in the works – if there’s money to pay for them and other high-demand sports facilities.
“We are deficient in so many aspects, and it all comes down to dollars and cents,” Chabot said.
Hakl, who now lives in Okotoks, is trying to address the skate park shortage himself. He’s buying the old equipment from the former 403 Skate Lounge indoor park, and is pursuing investors and property to resurrect it.
But zoning rules will largely restrict his options to a warehouse in industrial areas, and demand a lengthy permit process, the aspiring entrepreneur lamented.
“If this was Vancouver, I could have had it up already,” Hakl said.
jmarkusoff@calgaryherald.com
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald”
