Your Cherry Park, your watershed

As you know, we are introducing stormwater management infrastructure in Cherry Park. This means that some changes will be coming to the park, including upgrades to park features. Earlier this year, we presented design ideas for Cherry Park in the following ways:

• Public Open House on June 20, 2024
• Virtual Open House from June 6 to July 18, 2024
• Attended the Cherry Park Festival on July 6, 2024

Most of the people who took part in the Open House and virtual Open House live near Cherry Park. They said that their main activities in the park are:

• Walking or cycling on the trail
• Attending the Cherry Park Festival
• Enjoying nature

There were also two general designs presented to the public, as follows:

• Concept One - adding a wet pond in Cherry Park (Concept One), while also keeping the two baseball diamonds, but in new locations.
• Concept Two (A) and (B) - adding an underground stormwater holding tank under the baseball diamonds and a new stream feature in the park. The Concept Two (B) design also included more park features.

People liked a smaller water feature in the park (Concept Two) better than the wet pond (Concept One), but the choice between Concept Two (A) and Concept Two (B) was less clear. While people liked the extra park features that were shown in Concept Two (B), they also wanted to make sure that they could still use the park for different activities and events. For example, keeping open space in the park for more relaxed play and sports other than baseball, as well as the Cherry Park Festival.

When asked about other park features, people supported:

• More nature connections and naturalized plantings in parts of the park. This includes wildlife habitat, native planting, pollinator plantings, and opportunities to be close to nature.
• A new stone dust trail creating a connected trail throughout the park.
• More park features like individual and group seating, picnic tables, and upgraded play equipment.
• Flexibility of open and recreational space (open lawn and baseball diamond areas). That way, various activities including the Cherry Park Festival could continue to take place in the park.

Moving forward, you will have more chances to learn about and engage on the updates to Cherry Park through 2025.

The virtual open house for Cherry Park is now closed. Thank you to everyone who participated, whether virtually or in person! We look forward to analyzing the results and will share what we heard with an update on the project page.

If you haven’t already, please subscribe to be notified about future events. Add your email to the Stay Informed section of this page and click ‘Subscribe’.

If you have any questions, contact us at CherryPark@kitchener.ca

Thank you again to everyone who attended the in-person open house on June 20, 2024, and gave your feedback and comments.

Whether you attended the open house or not, we want to hear your feedback. The virtual open house is still available for your review and comments until July 18, 2024. We would love to hear from you!

Visit the Virtual Open House

In case you are interested, the presentation boards are also available from our in-person open house.

View the presentation boards

Visit the Virtual Open House

We’ve launched the first round of engagement activities for this project. Visit the virtual Open House from now until July 18, 2024 to learn about the park changes and help shape the design.

If you have any questions or comments, please read our Frequently Asked Questions. You can also reach out to our team at CherryPark@kitchener.ca.

Other ways to get involved

There are many ways to learn about this project and provide feedback. We will be available to hear from you and answer questions at these events. We’d love to see you!

• Drop by the Cherry Park Open House on June 20, 2024, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Victoria Hills Community Centre at 10 Chopin Drive. Please register
• Visit our booth at the Cherry Festival on Saturday, July 6, 2024, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Cherry Park at 84 Strange Street.

Come out and see us at the Cherry Park festival on July 6, 2024.

Location: Cherry Park (84 Strange Street)

Time: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

We are adding stormwater measures to Cherry Park, and we are looking for your feedback and comments on the design options. If you were not able to attend the open house on June 20, 2024, the designs will be available for you and there will be opportunities for you to provide your feedback.

There will also be some great prizes available, as well as interactive activities.

Find us at the City of Kitchener Engage tent. Looking forward to seeing you!

June 20, 2024

4 to 7 p.m.

Victoria Hills Community Centre, in the gym (10 Chopin Drive)

Register for the in-person open house

About the open house:

• Learn more about the stormwater improvements and park upgrades coming to Cherry Park
• Drop in anytime! Staff and engineering consultants will be available to receive your feedback and answer questions.
• We will have children’s activities and child-minding
• A light meal will be provided
• During this event, join Reep Green Solutions for a fun interactive Nurturing Nature in Your Neighbourhood workshop at 7 p.m.! Event details are available on Eventbrite.

Can’t make it?

If you can’t attend this in-person event, you can participate virtually. Our virtual open house is available until July 18, 2024

Visit the virtual open house

There are many opportunities to learn more and help shape the design as we look for ways to improve water quality and reduce flood risks through stormwater measures at Cherry Park.

Take part online

Learn about the project and provide feedback online during the Virtual Open House for Cherry Park, which will be held from June 6 to July 18, 2024. Subscribe to be alerted when the virtual open house goes live. Add your email to the Stay Informed box on this page and click ‘Subscribe’.

Drop by the Cherry Park Open House

June 20, 2024 | 4 to 7 p.m.

Victoria Hills Community Centre, in the gym (10 Chopin Drive)

Please register

About the open house:

• Learn more about the stormwater improvements and park upgrades coming to Cherry Park.
• Drop by anytime! Staff and consultants will be available to receive your feedback and answer questions.
• We will have children’s activities and childminding
• A light meal will be provided
• During this event, join Reep Green Solutions for a fun interactive Nurturing Nature in Your Neighbourhood workshop at 7 p.m.! Event details are available on Eventbrite.

Visit us at the Cherry Festival on Saturday, July 6

Drop by our booth for project info, fun activities, and a chance to share your feedback.

Climate change will bring more intense storms and more frequent freeze-thaw cycles. Creating more spaces for stormwater to collect will reduce flooding during future storms.

Runoff from the Cherry Park neighbourhood flows untreated through a creek channel in Cherry Park to Westmount Creek. This creek then leads to Victoria Park Lake and ultimately, the Grand River. Adding a stormwater feature to the park will filter and slow water down to prevent erosion and reduce flooding downstream.

By adding stormwater storage to the neighbourhood, we would:

• Intercept runoff before it rushes into Westmount Creek and Victoria Park Lake
• Filter the stormwaters before they re-enter the creek
• Slowly release these filtered waters into the creek to prevent erosion
• Reduce the risk of flooding in nearby streets and downstream neighbourhoods

Project background

In 2016, the City of Kitchener Council approved a stormwater master plan. This plan created a strategy to manage stormwater for the next 15 years. Through this plan, we learned that only 25% of runoff in the city is managed through stormwater facilities. This means that 75% of runoff from heavy rainfall and snow melt flows into storm sewers, contaminating local creeks.

The master plan identified initial concepts for projects to be installed throughout Kitchener. As we look at each project more closely, we will examine the technical feasibility of adjusting the designs to meet community needs.

To help us build these projects, we were awarded nearly $50 million from the Government of Canada through the Disaster Mitigation Adaptation Fund. Access to this funding means we can install needed stormwater measures at a reduced cost to the community much sooner than would have been possible without the funding. However, there are funding requirements we need to comply with, which have placed an additional constraint on these projects.

We consulted city-wide on the stormwater master plan. That consultation met the master plan’s needs, but as we look closer at specific projects, more consultation is required.

Consultation for the Class Environmental Assessment

The Ministry of the Environment approved this project in 2016 as part of the Integrated Stormwater Management Master Plan (ISWM-MP). If community consultations lead to required project modifications, we will seek to amend the relevant planning tools—in this case, the Class Environmental Assessment, under which the ISWM-MP was completed.