What Vancouver's Park Board controls, and how it survived a plan to abolish it

The Park Board ballot is the one many Vancouver voters skip or fill in last. In 2026 it carries 35 names for 7 seats, and it comes after three years in which the board's future was in doubt. This guide covers what the board controls, who pays for it, and how the plan to end it stopped.

A separate board, set up in 1889

The Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation was created in 1889 as an independent body to manage the city's parks, according to the Province. CBC News reports that Vancouver is the only municipality in British Columbia, and the only major city in Canada, with a park board elected on its own ballot. In every other BC city, council runs the parks.

Section 485 of the Vancouver Charter sets the board at seven members. Like council, the commissioners are elected at large, so every voter in the city chooses from the same 35 names.

What the board controls

The Vancouver Charter gives the board wide powers over land:

• Parks. Section 488 gives the board "exclusive possession of, and exclusive jurisdiction and control of" every permanent public park in the city, and of temporary parks Council assigns to it. Removing a permanent park needs a two-thirds vote of both Council and the board.
• Facilities and programs. Section 489 covers park buildings, indoor and outdoor pools in parks, beaches and bathing areas, and "recreational programs of all kinds".
• Community centres. CBC News describes the board as controlling the priorities and operation of the city's parks and community centres. Which community centre is renewed first has been one of the recent points of dispute between the board and Council, Daily Hive reported.

In daily life that covers pool hours and booking rules, swimming lessons, golf course fees, which community centre gets rebuilt first, and how a park is used.

Who sets the budget: City Council

City Council sets the Park Board's budget and gives final approval to its major capital projects. The board decides how parks and recreation run inside that budget.

This split is behind many of the disputes of the past four years. For 2026, Mayor Ken Sim asked for no increase in the city's property tax rate. City staff said the Park Board needed to find $11 million in new revenue and savings to meet that target. On November 24, 2025, commissioners approved fee increases averaging 5% on most programs, and approved a $191.9 million operating budget and a $126.4 million capital budget for 2026, CBC News reported. The vote split the board.

The plan to abolish the board, in order

December 2023. Mayor Ken Sim announced a plan to end the elected Park Board and move its powers to Council. On December 13, 2023, Council voted 8 to 3 to ask the Province to remove the board from the Vancouver Charter. A Green amendment asking for a binding public vote failed. ABC Vancouver lost its majority on the board when three commissioners elected with the party in 2022 split from it over the plan.

May 2025. The spring session of the legislature ended without the change. Global News reported that the City paused its planning.

October 2025. The Province tabled a bill. It would have let Council dissolve the board by by-law, but only after a majority of voters, 50% plus one, approved it in a city-wide vote. At the City's request, permanent parkland transferred to First Nations would have been exempt from that vote.

October 28, 2025. Housing and Municipal Affairs Minister Christine Boyle said the bill would not proceed. She said the City had more work to do, including with the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, who had asked for more consultation. Sim said he would not bring forward a vote that allowed parkland to be transferred without residents' consent, Daily Hive reported.

July 13, 2026. Sim said ABC Vancouver would no longer seek to dissolve the board and would run its own Park Board candidates. "The province basically made it impossible for us to do it," he said, as quoted by CBC News.

The Vancouver Charter was never amended. Only the Province can change it, and no bill to end the board was before the legislature as of September 29, 2026.

What this means for your ballot

You can mark up to 7 Park Board candidates. Mark 8 or more and every Park Board vote on your ballot is rejected, while your votes in the other races still count. Our guide to marking the Vancouver ballot explains the rule.

Park Board candidates list their priorities on their profiles. Browse them on our candidates page. One of the five questions on this year's ballot also touches parks: the third capital plan borrowing question asks for $60 million for parks and the seawall. The wording is on our ballot questions page.

Questions worth asking a Park Board candidate

• Which community centre should be renewed first, and why that one?
• Should outdoor pools keep a reservation system?
• How would you handle a budget that Council sets lower than the board asks for?
• Would you support ending the elected board if the question came back?

The answers will shape parks policy for the four years to 2030.