The skateboard coalition says Mount Pleasant has the highest concentration of skateboards in the city.John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail
Noise complaints from residents have prompted Vancouver's park board to consider demolishing a skateboard park in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood just three years after the city spent $80,000 setting it up.
The board will consider a report on Monday that includes among its options removing the park and building a larger one about nine blocks north. The new park would have a budget of $200,000.
The proposal has angered local skateboarders, who say the complaints are overblown and suggest the park board should consider alternate ways to deal with the issues.
Complaints from neighbours prompted a noise study and a series of consultations after the park opened.
To stop skateboarders from using the facility at night, a three-metre chain fence was installed around the park with a gate that was locked after hours.
But the report says noise complaints continue.
The report says that if a new facility is created, the old site could be converted to a lawn at a cost of $40,000 or replaced with a smaller facility for "beginner skateboarding use" at a cost of $25,000.
Jeff Cole, president of the Vancouver Skateboard Coalition, said the recommendations came as a surprise to his organization when the report was released earlier this week.
"We were and are extremely upset, saddened and disheartened by the fact that the current park board is fast-tracking the destruction of this skate park," he said.
Mr. Cole did not dispute that skateboarding is noisy, but he said that, rather than remove the park, the board should follow the recommendations of a 2012 sound assessment that determined a 2.5-metre sound barrier around the park would bring daytime noise to levels in line with the city's noise bylaw.
"They don't seem to want to listen to these recommendations, even though they've paid very good money to experts to give that opinion," he said.
Park board chair John Coupar said he is surprised by the skateboarders' concerns.
"It would be different if the option was just to decommission this or look for other options and not have an alternative, but I think this alternative is going to be quite a superior facility," he said.
Mr. Coupar said a sound barrier wall would be too costly and pose "aesthetic problems."
Mr. Coupar is a member of the Non-Partisan Association, which won control of the park board in last fall's municipal election, although he said the idea of moving the facility did not originate with the party. He said the process that led to the report has been going on for years.
He said he did not know how he or his fellow commissioners will vote on Monday.
Former Vision Vancouver park board chair Sarah Blyth, who was instrumental in the creation of several skateboard parks, said getting rid of the park "sets a precedent for youth parks in the future."
She suggested the board should still build the second facility but leave the existing one.
She said another park in Mount Pleasant – which the skateboard coalition says has the highest concentration of skateboarders in the city – would reduce the pressure on the current one, bringing down noise levels.
"This is completely overblown," she added, saying the number of complaints is actually quite small.
A spokesperson for the city said that while staff do not have exact numbers for the complaints now, they will compile an exact count based on 311 calls, letters and e-mails and present it at Monday's meeting.