The Chestermere lakefront landscape is changing at Anniversary Park. Construction has begun on the new beach located east of the Rec Centre but with it the most noticeable changes so far might be the two dozen missing trees. The 20-30 year old poplar trees located along the west end of the park were cut down last week because they did not fit with the new park design.
According to Megan Matthies, Communications & Legislative Coordinator for the Town of Chestermere, the trees are very important to the town. “There are over 5,000 in town and its part of what makes Chestermere so beautiful. In fact, we require each new dwelling to have at least one tree or two bushes”.
“As for the trees in Anniversary Park however, we were unable to keep the existing trees primarily due to the construction of the beach,” says Matthies, who goes on to explain that the green spaces to the west of the beach where the trees were will need to be at a higher elevation than the beach so the current ground has to be built up, in some places by about ½ meter.
“As changing the elevation around the trees to this extent would have killed them anyway, they were taken out. This way, they also didn’t post a safety risk to construction workers.”
While the town admits that removing the large shade trees is unfortunate, they are happy to add that keeping the trees at the south end of Anniversary Park is in the plan and once the park is completed, they will actually be planting more trees than were taken out. Although approximately 25 trees were removed from the park, the new design will include an abundance of greenery with over 60 new trees to be planted. “Currently the plan is to include some ash, aspen, poplars, and elms” says Matthies.
The expanded Anniversary Park will feature almost 8000m2 of additional space – a 60% expansion of the park including a sand beach. There will be a sand beach, terraced steps into the lake, more green space, a promenade, rolling grassy hills, picnic tables, and a concrete promenade along the lake, more parking and permanent public washrooms.
According to the town’s website, this project is being funded entirely through the Municipal Sustainability Initiative Provincial grant and donations from corporate sponsors. The projected completion date of the project is Fall 2014. However, the plan is for the beach to be available for use this summer.
