The public may yet get another chance to have a say in the future of Bert Flinn Park and the direction of development at the Ioco lands after Port Moody council all but decided those matters Tuesday.
At the urging of Coun. Zoe Royer, Port Moody council directed staff to include a public consultation plan as it passed a resolution to remove the road right of way from the 311-acre park.
Royer was the only councillor at Tuesday’s meeting to vote against the resolution, although two veteran councillors who had previously supported retaining the right of way were absent; Diana Dilworth and Meghan Lahti are away on a trip.
Other resolutions — to limit development of the PoMo portion of the Ioco townsite to its current zoning for 111 single family-homes; to direct staff to investigate the implications of removing Ioco Road from the region’s major road network; and make improvements to Bert Flinn Park, including more parking and a wheelchair-accessible path — were passed unanimously.
The votes came after council heard from more than three dozen speakers during the public input portion of the meeting. The majority of them supported retaining the right of way through the park, just as the majority of speakers at a previous public input session in the summer on the same topic had.
They cited reasons like a lack of engagement with other stakeholders such as Metro Vancouver, the villages of Anmore and Belcarra, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority and Brilliant Circle Group (BCG), the owners of the Ioco lands, a 250-acre parcel of property in Port Moody and Anmore and was once the townsite for workers at the nearby Imperial Oil refinery. Several also expressed concern about the amount of traffic new development or increases for parking capacity planned for Belcarra Regional Park could bring to narrow, twisty Ioco Road without the relief provided by an alternate route.
Some said removing the right of way even risks the preservation of several heritage buildings at the Ioco townsite, which BCG has said it would retain and incorporate into its development of the property. The company has yet to submit a formal plan for its project.
But Mayor Rob Vagramov claimed the message to save the park from the incursion of a paved roadway has been heard loud and clear for several years since BCG acquired the Ioco lands in 2015 and announced its intention to develop the property. That sparked a group co-founded by Coun. Hunter Madsen to organize petitions and rallies to fight any plan to turn the right of way — which has been part of Port Moody’s official community plan for decades and was preserved when the park was created in 1999 after a referendum — into an extension of David Avenue.
And while a council vote last July that was opposed by Vagramov and Madsen reaffirmed the right of way, in accordance with a city staff report, the new mayor said the results of the October civic election that deposed the former mayor by 394 votes and another councillor who both supported retaining the road option indicated the public feels otherwise.
“From my perspective, we’ve spent about three years with various levels of consultation, rallies, alternative route studies, public input and the election,” Vagramov said. “We’ve collected a significant amount of data from the public.”
But Royer said the rift created by the debate over the park’s future the past three years needs to be mended and that can only be accomplished by ensuring the public is fully informed about the implications of any decisions and has a chance to be heard.
“If we want to set the tone moving forward, if we want to be a council that brings the community together, then we need to get people in a room,” Royer said.
Madsen said the decisions council made Tuesday will drive those conversations toward finding alternate solutions to traffic and density issues on Port Moody’s north shore.
“We need to approach the park, the Ioco Road traffic growth and limiting density, we need to get those handled all at once,” he said.
Royer remained skeptical, saying, “I really hope the community feels listened to."
