Clarington is planning its own version of Central Park, Mayor Adrian Foster told Durham Post in an exclusive interview.
“We’re doing a public consultation, including with Valleys 2000, which took the lead in creating Bowmanville Valley what it is today. If you went back a number of years, it was a disaster down there,” said Mayor Foster, while pointing out that “Valleys 2000, along with our help and funding from other levels of government, turned that [the valley] into a gem”.
He said Valleys 2000 has asked to be involved with the Bowmanville Zoo lands project. “We’re delighted to have their enthusiasm and expertise.
“We got 34 acres. There will be some active recreation down there and lots of passive recreation. It connects with Soper Creek to the south and Camp 30 lands to the north, so there’s a huge swath of greenbelt. If we fast forward a couple of decades, that’s going to be a significant piece of parkland,” Mayor Foster pointed out.
“It’s our version of Central Park that we’re planning now,” he said.
Prettiest Municipality
On the tourism side, we tend to say we are the prettiest municipality, said the mayor. “We got 34km of waterfront. We have the Courtice Waterfront, the former Bowmanville Zoo land; there is a vision of a huge circle of green.
“We have Port Granby with hundreds of acres coming back to public use with tying up of remediation work. Land that we will be able to picnic on. Bowmanville Arena in south Bowmanville is there. We are bringing into public ownership significant tracts of land to be used by the public”.
Mayor Foster pointed out that these are long term visions and plans. “You have a long-term multi-year strategy as we don’t have the money to build all this at one go.
He pointed out that there’s a lot that is still being worked on.
Read more from the interview next week
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