‘Grownup playgrounds’: Aurora considers constructing outside health parks

Johnny Kwan wants Aurora to set up a properly designed outdoor fitness park, preferably at Ada Johnson Park in east Aurora. He says the various devices are missing from Ada Johnson Park. October 4, 2021

Should Aurora’s recreational opportunities be expanded in a post-pandemic world?

Resident Johnny Kwan thinks so.

While indoor sports facilities like hockey arenas are going nowhere, he wants the city to expand its horizons by introducing well-designed outdoor fitness parks.

“Usually these fitness parks are designed as complete whole-body circles. Depending on which audience we want to address, all devices should be usable for all age groups. The most popular stations are usually the push-up bars, pull-up bars, and parallel bars, ”Kwan said.

“Having all the equipment next to each other makes it easier to exercise without having to walk around. The ability to socialize is a bonus. “

Aurora currently has two “partial fitness parks,” as Kwan calls them, in Sheppard’s Bush Conservation Area and Ada Johnson Park.

But he says the equipment is inferior and improperly distributed, which limits quality training.

“With Toronto having more than 50 fitness parks across the city, Aurora falls behind with two partial fitness parks,” he said.

As the COVID-19 pandemic closed or imposed capacity limits on gyms and other indoor spaces and the supply of home fitness equipment dried up, more residents began looking for alternatives to outdoor recreation, Kwan said.

The council has agreed to look into the feasibility of outdoor fitness parks, possibly also in the city’s southwestern quarter, which lacks recreational facilities.

This will go hand-in-hand with a review the city is undertaking in the next year of its master plan for parks and recreation.

This isn’t the first time a resident has asked the city to consider introducing a new outdoor activity amid the pandemic.

Last winter, Todd Billo introduced the idea of ​​disc golf, which uses frisbees and wire baskets.

“The sport has exploded since the onset of COVID because it is one of the few outdoor activities that is COVID-safe,” he said.

Outdoor fitness parks exist across Canada and are a potential source of income for communities that may charge programming and rental fees, Coun said. Rachel Gilliland, who brought the idea to the council at the end of September.

Providing outdoor fitness parks, which she called “adult playgrounds,” could be good for the physical and mental health of residents, especially given the fear of the pandemic, argued Gilliland.

A poll in the 2021 Canadian City Parks Report conducted by Park People Network, a group focused on activating the power of city parks, found that 60 percent of cities said COVID-19 had a negative impact on park budgets but 85 percent of Canadians said they want to invest more public money in parks.

According to the report, 94 percent of cities said park use increased during the pandemic.

Two-thirds of Canadians spent more time in parks during the pandemic, and of these, 82 percent said they expect their use of the parks to continue or increase in the future.

Aurora’s current park and recreation master plan covers 2016-2021 and needs to be updated to reflect population growth, evolving demographics, and changing recreational preferences, said Community Services Director Robin McDougall.

“The update would require a significant public process and consultation with all user groups to support the development of the revised plan,” she said.

“There is no particular focus on verification. The goal of the review is to get feedback from the community and user groups on what amenities they are looking for in the community, such as:

The master plan update will review and incorporate these findings, McDougall said.

“If new ideas such as disc golf or outdoor fitness equipment emerge, these are taken into account in the study by the residents / user groups,” she said.

The city recently completed complementary studies specifically on water sports and outdoor sports fields, McDougall added.

STORY BEHIND THE STORY: After the idea of ​​outdoor fitness parks came up at a council meeting in late September, reporter Lisa Queen wanted to investigate whether outdoor recreational opportunities would change due to the pandemic.