Some Winnipeg-owned golf courses could have new public use with dog parks, Frisbee golf, report suggests

A study into potential new uses for11 golf courses owned by the City of Winnipeg suggeststhe city could convertportions of all of themintoother forms of green space and find new public uses forup to five of the properties.

The study also suggests city council may wish torevive the sale of the John Blumberg Golf Course, a property city council shied away from selling in 2022 after declaring it surplus to the city's needs nine years earlier.

None of the options are binding on the city council, which has spent the past decade mulling the idea of selling or redeveloping some or all of Winnipeg's golf courses, which by and large tend to underperformcompared totheir private counterparts.

The 140-page study, conducted by Winnipeg consulting firm HTFCPlanning & Design, examines ways to redevelop up to 30 per cent of property in all 11 courses.

It recommends dozens of options, ranging from carving out parks or community gardens fromsome of the courses, replacing grass with natural vegetation on others and converting more courses for winter use, such as cross-country skiing.

The study also suggests five of the city-owned courses Canoe Club, Harbourview, St. Boniface, Windsor and John Blumberg could benefit from entirely new uses or redesigns.

It suggests converting all or part of Canoe Club into a dog park or Frisbee golf course, redesign Harbourview into trails for BMX or fat bikes andintegrate the St. Boniface and the Windsor Park golf courses and build a practice range at St. Boniface.

John Blumberg, the study suggests, could be naturalized entirely or sold to the RM of Headingley.

The study follows more than a decade of city council debate, starting with a plan to redevelop golf courses for residential usewhen Sam Katz was Winnipeg's mayor.

Opposition to that idea led council to water down the plan to a 2013 decision to declare a single property, John Blumberg, surplus to the city's needs. Council eventually backed away from a plan to sell the Headingley property, voting the disposal of the land down in 13-3 vote during Brian Bowman's final year as mayor.

In 2020, city council ordered up what would becomethe HTFC study, stipulating the city is more interested in ideas that retain some form of public use.

None of the study's recommendations are binding on the city, acting Winnipeg real estate manager Gord Chappell wrotein a report to council's property and development committee.

"Should council decide to pursue any of the repurposing opportunities, further analysis will be required to validate the option and public engagement may be required," Chappellwrotein the report, which comes before the committee on Thursday.

The city would also have to determine how much any changes to golf courses would cost, Chappell said.

Coun. John Orlikow (River Heights-Fort Garry), who chairs council's community services committee, said while he would like to see some of the golf courses converted into other public uses, he's content to wait to see what council wants as a whole.

Coun. Sherri Rollins (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry), who chairs the property committee, said she's happy Winnipeg is taking a more ecological approach to repurposing golf coursescompared to cities that are looking at redeveloping them into residential areas.