Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Central Park: Resident hopes Hadden Park protected for perpetuity

It looks like the city and park board have backed off from development of any kind in Hadden Park for a very long time, if not in perpetuity.
Megan Carvell Davis
Community activist Megan Carvell Davis. File photo Dan Toulgoet

It looks like the city and park board have backed off from development of any kind in Hadden Park for a very long time, if not in perpetuity.

Kits Point resident and community activist Megan Carvell Davis said recent documents from the city show the park will finally be protected as it was always meant to be. More than 85 years ago, millionaire land speculator Harvey Hadden donated the land under the condition the city "shall keep the property as near as possible in its present state of nature.” Carvell Davis argued a recent proposal to build a $2.2-million, 12-foot wide paved bike path through Hadden Park contravened that deed.

“It looks like I’ll finally have an opportunity to talk to the park board about Hadden Park and the deed,” said Carvell Davis.

Last October, the park board approved a plan to construct a bike path through Hadden and Kits Beach parks as part of the Seaside Greenway plan connecting Canada Place to Stanley Park to False Creek and finally Jericho. The path was to be an extension of the Cornwall-Point Grey bike lane. At the time, residents accused the city and park board of burying the details within the Seaside Greenway report. In response, the ad hoc group Save Kits Beach Now Coalition was formed and protests were organized.

The group then approached Carvell Davis to file a lawsuit against the city and park board in B.C. Supreme Court in an attempt to halt the bike path, which she did last November. She also successfully petitioned for an injunction to postpone construction until a decision could be made regarding the path. In a public statement released in February, the park board said it had abandoned plans to build the bike path.

Carvell Davis says recent correspondence from the city states in part, “The interim injunction in the Petition remains in place so long as the Petition remains extant (in existence)… In the hypothetical event that either respondents pass a new resolution directing and authorizing the commencement of work on a paved bicycle path on Hadden Park, the respondent will be at liberty to request pursuant to Rule 16-1 (17) of the Rules of Court that the Petition (possibly amended) be set for hearing…”

All of which I believe means the court case won’t become active unless the park board and city proceed with new development plans for Hadden Park.

“I guess they know that if we went to court once we will go to court again,” said Carvell Davis.

A town hall meeting at Heritage Hall on Main Street tonight (March 12) 7 p.m. will lay out how the residents, armed with support from lawyer Bob Kasting, halted the bike path.

The event has been dubbed, “It Takes a Lawyer to Beat City Hall in Vancouver: Legal Update on City’s Back-down and final Settlement on Hadden Park and Kits Beach Bike Lanes — the ‘done deal’ is not happening.”

“Done deal” is a reference to a comment Vision Vancouver park board commissioner Aaron Jasper made to the Courier last October in response to the plan.

sthomas@vancourier.com

twitter.com/sthomas10