Leonard Linton Park ready for makeover

Leonard Linton Park will receive a complete redevelopment in order to better align it with the needs of the community.

“During my campaign I was knocking on doors, standing at bus stops and I noticed the large number of young kids in the townhouses and condos there,” Ward 26 councillor Jon Burnside said. “We have been out there looking at it and we did some clean up and everything else but it seemed to me that there was a lot of space that wasn’t being used properly… it didn’t seem to address the needs of the community.”

Currently the park houses a skate park, two basketball courts and a large green space. As it stands, there is no playground or any other equipment to accommodate young children. Three proposals have been put forward to address that issue.

Some of the proposed changes include: a new playground with a rubber tile surface for safety; an area designated for a splash pad development in the future; seating for parents in a new gathering space between the splash pad and playground to make monitoring the children easier.

Janice Brionis, who visits the park regularly with kids, likes the idea of a designated area for young children, because currently family pets and young children are using the same area.

“That will be great, because the dogs are everywhere they poop and pee everywhere and you don’t know where, so you have to watch out for the kids and everything, so that would be great,” Brionis said.

Currently the plan is to have the park redeveloped in the three months, but Burnside says it will likely be finished by the fall.

“Unfortunately it takes a while, so we pick the design and then we have to find a contractor — so we put a request for proposals and we pick our contractor and off they go,” Burnside said. “The thing is they always give you a date and it is three months later so I would say by the fall.”

Local resident Kamar Shah, who also uses the park regularly, thinks the redevelopment is a great idea.

“I think it is a fantastic idea — absolutely fantastic,” Shah said. “I have a six-year-old daughter … we are out here all the time with the kids, in the mornings, after school — so it will be great.”