Castanet Mar 9, 2026
The Kelowna city planning staff stated, on Feb. 9, that paving over 46 acres of 106 acres of the well-known, cherished and walkable Kelowna Springs Golf Course supports the city’s Official Community Plan (January 2022) for continued development of industrial land.
The city has a glut (1,290 acres) of existing, vacant industrial land which represents a 36 to 56 years supply (regional-employment-lands-inventory-report-february-2025.pdf ).
So, (the paving) makes absolutely no sense. What is the hurry? Why would the city want to destroy an existing turnkey 18-hole golf course with 600 trees and birds, ducks, turtles, etc., for 46 acres of industrial land (the city) doesn’t need?
The city states that once the warehouses are built, it will generate about $4 million in Development Cost Charges and about $1million in additional annual tax revenue. Wouldn’t it be able to generate the same (amount of revenue) on any 46 acres of the 1,290 acres that are already available? Of course it would.
(The Kelowna Golf Course) is floodplain land that periodically floods. It is critical as a natural water management facility. Most municipalities nowadays put a dollar value on such flood storage areas and building on them is considered outdated thinking.
Even the Insurance Bureau of Canada now incorporates the total economic value of natural assets, such as flood protecting lands. Do we want to unnecessarily flood downstream infrastructure and the surrounding farmland if we don’t need to? No.
On March 4, the city issued a copy of a lease with the developer which states the developer will be able to go onto the city owned 9-hole golf course (at Kelowna Springs) to install certain groundwater management systems so the developer can operate the warehouse site. Will this cause flooding of the new city-owned golf course? Very likely.
Who will pay when the golf course, and likely the surrounding agricultural land, floods from the water from the development site? Taxpayers will. All for 46 acres of industrial land we don’t need.
Let’s keep this beautiful 18-hole golf course for our present and for our future. The city can buy it as a municipal golf course as we don’t have one.
Municipal golf courses offer affordable golf for families, children, the young and old and they carry themselves financially. In the winter, the land could be used for snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and strolling with a nip into the club house for hot chocolate. What an asset. Let’s save it.
Go to the public hearing on the rezoning and have your voice heard and write to Kelowna city council.
Stop this atrocious destruction of our greenspace.
Susan Ames
