The City of Quinte West will be opening up its parks and waiving permit fees so some businesses can provide recreational activities as the pandemic continues.
City staff have dealt with multiple requests from businesses asking to use city parks for things like yoga classes, or group workouts, to make it easier to stick to social distancing and other COVID-19 related rules.
Director of Planning and Development Brian Jardine says the aim is to help out some local businesses during difficult times.
“With Stage 3 opening up now it just allows for those recreation-type businesses, who still can’t manage with physical distancing requirements, to be able to run within the parks and the waiving of those fees.”
Councillor Leslie Roseblade mentioned the fact that this isn’t a free-for-all on city parks, but would be limited to established businesses.
“Staff assured and I want the public to know that this is for existing taxpaying Quinte West businesses to allow them to expand outdoors if they don’t have the capacity indoors. It’s not just for anyone who wants to run a yoga class in the park for free as a side business. It has to be someone who has an established business in Quinte West.”
There are also a number of guidelines that will need to be followed for a business to qualify to use the park including:
- That classes do not require the location of physical structures on city property
- That classes do not include any activities that could reasonably be expected to damage city property
- That class locations will not obstruct defined public sidewalks or trails
- That classes will not negatively impact the enjoyment of city parks for other users
- That classes will be located so as not to impact regular parks maintenance work
- That city staff would be notified as to their schedules so as not to impact other classes or activities taking place
- That gathering limits do not exceed the new Stage 3 regulations and meet physical distancing requirements
In his report, Jardine says the move will allow these businesses to maintain a source of income and will give residents more access to outdoor activities during the pandemic.
He says they also expect less requests to come in, since more recreational businesses are able to run activities indoors again as part of Phase 3 of Ontario’s reopening.
