Vernon laying groundwork for Polson Park Revitalization Plan

Oct 15, 2025 | 12:56 PM

The City of Vernon will be looking at enhancing its key downtown park.

City Council received a report on a developing a plan to revitalize Polson Park at the regular meeting Tuesday, October 14.

With the Polson Park Vernon Creek Naturalization Project, which aims to address flooding and groundwater concerns as well as fish habitat at the park, nearing completion, Vernon has the opportunity to start looking towards enhancing the park as a whole. This would primarily involve include addressing aging infrastructure and assets that are at or nearing the end of their life cycle, such as the playground, tennis courts and splash park.

“We’re intentionally framing this as a Revitalization Plan rather than a Master Plan. Polson Park is already one of Vernon’s most significant and well established community spaces. This isn’t about starting from scratch or redeveloping a blank site, it’s about renewing and enhancing what’s already there while strategically planning for the future,” Larissa Price, Vernon’s Manager of Park Projects and Community Initiatives, told Council Tuesday.

“The purpose of this plan would be to establish a long-term vision that will guide the park’s development over the next 20 years. Through the planning process, high-level conceptual designs and cost estimates will be developed to help set clear priorities for future investment. The plan will also establish a phased approach of improvements, allowing us to balance immediate needs with longer term enhancements.

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“Ultimately, this will give council and staff the tools to make informed budgeting and investing decisions for the park over time.”

The Revitalization Plan would be carried out over multiple phases, starting with an assessment of the park and amenity conditions. This will be used to inform the following stages that include drafting plans for the park, coming up with conceptual designs for new or upgraded assets, and finding out the estimated costs of that work.

Price noted that community engagement would be a key part of the initial work.

“We want to understand how the park is being used today; what challenges people are experiencing; and what opportunities and priorities they see for the present,” the Park Projects and Community Initiatives Manager stated.

“This will inform site programing, which will incorporate asset management and the potential for new facilities and amenities.”

Among the new assets the city was looking at was a potential ice skating rink or track, which has been on the city’s radar for multiple years. Mayor Victor Cumming did inform Price at Tuesday’s meeting that it may be a good idea to investigate opportunities for an artificial, plastic surface to be temporarily installed at the park to use for such purposes should the initial work find that to be a priority.

Council voted unanimously in favour of supporting the planning phase of the Polson Park Revitalization Project, and allocated a total of $180,291 towards that work. Of that total, $91,000 would come from the Prior Year Unexpended Uncommitted Balance Reserve, with the remaining $89,291 coming from the Polson Park Reserve.

It was noted that allocating these funds would drain the Polson Park Reserve, but staff indicated that would be replenished through a new Reserve Policy that was being drafted as of time of publication.

Phase 1 of the Polson Park Revitalization Project was estimated to take between six to eight months to complete, depending on the availability of qualified consultants to help with the work and the timing of developing the findings.

Speaking with Vernon Matters, Mayor Cumming said the idea to revitalize the downtown park had been a topic of conversation for quite a while, but indicated the timing to move ahead with it seemed right with the creek work nearing completion.

“We have been on the edge of replanning Polson for a number of years now, and each time we had to do some investigation so we had a clear platform of what the physical environment was like, and what turned out was we had a problem with groundwater,” Cumming said.

“As people have known, we’ve done this Phase 1 and now Phase 2 of the [Polson Park Vernon Creek Naturalization project], so with that to be complete later this fall, it’s time now to plan for the improvements of the park.”

The mayor added there will be a number of questions on how the park is currently used and what uses it could serve in the future, which will be identified in the community engagement and asset assessment work.

“We’re hoping that sometime in the spring we’ll have that information brought to council and begin the detailed planning process,” Cumming stated, adding it will also allow the city time to monitor how the creek naturalization work has impacted the groundwater and flooding issues at the park.

Price noted during her presentation that the park serves as a “gateway to the city” as it is located between two highways, and is a “central green space within the city park network” for residents and visitors to access from the nearby neighbourhoods. She also said it serves as a central gathering point for events, celebrations, and recreation.

by Liam Verster

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