On June 30, 2026, Mayor Dan Ruimy and A Better Maple Ridge Councillors Korleen Carreras and Onyeka Dozie, together with Councillor Judy Dueck, approved the Recreation Ready funding strategy.
The question they are asking you to vote on is…
Are you in favour of the City borrowing up to $23 million for up to 25 years to construct a multi-use community park at 20818 Golf Lane?
What you need to know before you decide…
The question does not tell voters that the property is the current location of the busy Maple Ridge Golf Course, which has operated for over 100 years and is used primarily by youth, women, seniors and people learning the game.
Although the city may legally use this wording, it does not make clear that voting “yes” would result in the closure of a popular city-owned facility.
About the golf course…
The City owns the course and leases it to a specialize golf course operator who covers all of the costs of maintaining the 40-acres, operations, security and insurance costs.
The operator manages everything on site and takes their profit on what players pay minus what the operator pays to the City each year.
The golf course cost the taxpayers nothing today
and delivers revenue to the city annually.
If the City takes this property over, just maintaining the site in phase one is estimated at $375,000
annually not including security costs.
Estimated security costs to patrol a 40 acre site inside the city averages around $90,000 annually for 24 hour monitoring.
The city’s Phase-1 plan is to move the two Hammond baseball diamonds to the golf course site and add some walking paths and open green space.
Excluding Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge maintains approximately 200 kilometres of City-managed trails across the community. The proposed multi-use park would increase the total trail network by roughly 3%.
The bottom line… Taxpayers are loosing reliable revenue and increasing taxes so property owners and renters can gain 3% more walking paths and some green space.
That’s over $3,000,000 per kilometer for walking paths.
The one thing the council is right about… it is time to invest in the city owned site.
Introducing…
Maple Ridge Golf and Recreation
Community Centre
