For more than 20 years, the Dragon Zone Paddling Club “squatted” on the southeast shore of False Creek. The club’s general manager gave a little laugh about this fact and acknowledged how grateful she was for the allowance and access to land that is now closer to becoming the clubhouse they covet.
“The community has been very nice to us to allow us so much leeway,” said Ann Phelps last week after the new paddling centre was officially opened April 30. “We are happy that facility is open and we’re not such a blight on the seawall.”
The club advocated for a designated boat house and docks for the better part of two decades and came close to realizing that ambition roughly a decade ago before the 2010 Olympic Games upstaged plans to build an extensive paddling centre at the future Creekside
Community Centre. Phelps, a kayaker who has been involved with the club for 26 years, including 18 as GM, said the interruption came as a surprise.
“We were unhappy it was stopped [at that time],” she said. “They decided that it would be better as a general community centre with some limited boating access. We renewed our activities so we could still get some docks.”
The docks were permitted, but the club expanded as it needed, said Phelps, letting out another little laugh. “I have to admit we grew without anybody noticing. We had a pretty good run.”
The expanded paddling centre opened with six accessible docks and six small storage units, an improvement, but a size that nonetheless limits the club’s ability to expand, said Phelps.
“It’s built to house what we have now,” she said. The docks accommodate their 800-pound dragon boats but they lack permanent winter storage and a club house for social, administrative and community space.
The next planning stage is for that boat house, but Phelps said the park board has halted plans. Nonetheless, the Dragon Zone Paddling Club will build on several decades of advocacy and draw up its own designs, including a space for rowers, who were “cut out of the equation” in the latest changes.
“We hope [the next phase] will allow us to have significant growth as far as more equipment, more programing and a place for the paddlers and rowers to call home,” said Phelps. “We thought we would be planning it with the park board, but they have put that strategy on hold.
So, we are going to move ahead and plan it on our own, then we will be going after funding.”
The park board approved the latest improvements in May 2014, pointing to the discrepancy between the large number of committed, competitive paddlers and their lacklustre dock and storage facilities. Initial estimates placed the cost at approximately $3 million, and the total bill was $3.2 million. Funding came from Community Amenity Contributions, an account bankrolled by developers in exchange for the city granting development rights and rezoning. Long-term supporters of the Dragon Boat Festival, Concord Pacific, also made a $1-million contribution to the paddling centre.
The new waterfront centres are six small storage buildings for non-motorized boats, while and paddling equipment, six floating docks and two ramps improve accessibility for boats to enter and exit the water. In 2013, roughly 4,400 people, including school groups, participated in the society’s programs. The club’s membership is roughly 2,300 paddlers.
Inspired by the Chinese origins of dragon boating, the architect used floating lanterns as inspiration for the new docks and storage areas. Semi-translucent panels on square buildings create the effect, especially visible at night, of course.
False Creek is popular with all kinds of non-motorized boat uses, including kayakers, out-rigger paddlers, canoers, rowers and stand-up paddlers, if surfboards are included in the tally. Dragon boating was put before an international crowd in Vancouver during Expo 86.
@MHStewart
