SPC recommends council approve first Nikka Yuko master plan as guiding document

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on October 26, 2024.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

The first master plan in the history of the Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden has been completed and on Thursday the Governance Standing Policy Committee of Lethbridge city council offered council recommendations on how to address it.
The SPC consists of councillors Belinda Crowson, John Middleton-Hope, Jenn Schmidt-Rempel and Acting Mayor Jeff Carlson.
The recommendation from the SPC calls on council to adopt the 2024 master plan as a guiding document and direct administration to return to it through the SPC for approval of objectives identified in the plan.
Those objectives include:
• Capital projects to be submitted to future Capital Improvement Program (CIP) deliberations.
• Initiatives requiring operating budget changes to be submitted to future Operation Budget deliberations.
The report to the SPC states that initiatives contained in the master plan requiring new funding will be requested as part of future CIP programs and operating budgets.
The report to the SPC was submitted by Recreation and Culture general manager Robin Harper and Community Arts and Culture Manager Jillian Bracken.
A summary of the report says that funding to establish the master plan was approved in the 2022-31 CIP. Arcadis IBI Group was retained by the City in 2022 to develop a 10-year plan for the garden with the Lethbridge and District Japanese Garden Society participating in the consultant selection process.
The plan focuses on three areas, according to a presentation to the SPC:
1) Horticultural elements including trees, shrubs, etcetera.
2) Garden facilities and other physical structure/elements; and
3) Garden operations and maintenance including a review of existing standards.
The report to SPC calls the plan for the 3.7 acre garden “forward thinking, looking to the future, and building on past successes, while being respectful of the rich heritage of the garden. It will enable garden operations, facility upkeep, and Garden care to move forward in an integrated, cohesive, and purposeful manner. The Plan includes a thorough review and assessment of existing conditions. Information from these condition assessments inform recommendations within the plan and were reinforced through an engagement process with identified stakeholders and the public.
An executive summary of the plan states that the garden “remains a jewel in the City of Lethbridge Parks network and its historic designation with the municipality and province demands that the Garden’s authenticity and Japanese cultural preservation is paramount in future development and renovation projects. The Garden is community driven and an important tourist destination that provides economic benefits to Lethbridge and Alberta. The maintenance and careful repair of character defining elements is the starting point for this master plan.”
Recommendations within it are necessary, says the summary, to maintain the garden’s designation as a municipal and provincial historic resource during the next decade and beyond.
“These recommendations accommodate the needs of the operator and its responsibility to promote cultural programming balanced with the requirement that the Garden remains an outstanding example of a Japanese style garden in Canada. It strikes a sensitive balance between the requirement to maintain the outstanding horticultural and architectural assets with the physical pressures imposed by programming and events well as the influences caused by climate change, harsh Alberta winters, and dry summers,” states the summary.
After the presentation by Ernie Webster of Arcadis Professional Services, the plan was given public support by former mayor Chris Spearman who spoke to the SPC about the importance of the garden.
“It was our city’s centennial project. When I was on council, I noted that quite often it was emphasized we wanted to assure that we maintained infrastructure throughout the city and it was cheaper to maintain the infrastructure like roads and bridges than let them fall apart and have to redo them. And I would encourage council and members to think the same way about Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden,” said Spearman.
“We need to invest in the garden on a regular basis, we need to update it on a regular basis. It’s what I would say tourist attraction infrastructure, it’s not roads and bridges infrastructure but it’s infrastructure that is essential to the reputation of the city of Lethbridge. When we invite people to our city, they see the bridge, they might see the fort and they see Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden. It’s part of our city’s reputation…we have to remember when it became our city’s centennial project in 1967, in essence it was a form of a promise. It was about cultural understanding and I think it’s an important message for our city to say that’s still important to us, that we want to continue to grow cultural understanding and relationships with the people and an understanding of history, who we are and where we came from,” added Spearman.
“I really think Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden is an important asset and the city should continue to invest in it and build on a new vision,” said Spearman.
Dawn Sugimoto, president of the Lethbridge and District Japanese Garden Society, also addressed the SPC, saying “this is the first master plan in the garden’s history and we as a society have been looking forward to it for a long time. It is especially important to have this document in place as the garden ages and as climate change takes its toll.
“The board in our most recent meeting voted to support the recommendation to this committee to adopt this master plan. We see it as an important resource to guide garden care, maintenance and ongoing operations,” added Sugimoto.
She added the board was thankful to Webster and his team for creating an inventory of every tree and shrub in the garden.
“That inventory of the living asset I think will be quite valuable to both of us – the City and the society – going forward,” said Sugimoto.
She said the board sees the master plan as an “excellent planning document. It will be a great resource going forward and we look forward to working with the City if given that opportunity to make this vision stronger, to build on the authenticity and to build on it as an attraction for tourism. We think it’s good for business, we think it’s great for our reputation in this community and it is a source of pride,” added Sugimoto.
The garden and its facilities are owned by the City and operated through a fee-for-service agreement with the garden society. Its design, says the executive summary, “reflects traditional techniques of Japanese garden design adapted to the Canadian prairie context. The maintenance is carried out by Recreation and Culture Department with support from the Parks and Cemeteries Department.”
Apart from regular wear and tear associated with public programming and use of the garden, the annual Winter Lights festival also impacts the landscape.
“The plant materials within the Gardens were sourced locally, with the intent to emulate the authentic planting style in a Japanese Garden, using vegetation and indigenous species that would thrive in the southern Alberta climate. Crucial to the success of the master plan is preservation of the authenticity and traditional design by the original Japanese consultants.
“One of the main challenges in maintaining the original design intent is keeping the mature trees and shrubs as healthy as possible. Most of the feature trees within Nikka Yuko are in very good condition with new growth or have reached an equilibrium with the landscape. With a garden space of this maturity any replacement is going to be noticeable for many years and should be considered in consultation with the future Japanese garden expert. Replacement of feature plant material should be part of a pro-active replacement plan and be considered when the tree is considered a hazard, compromises public safety, is actively dying, or conflicts with the original design intent. Public safety is paramount,” says the summary.
The garden was first conceived in 1963 when Cleo Mowers, Kurt Steiner and Reverened Yutetsu Kawamura had the idea to create a Japanese garden here. The proposal of the initial steering committee had the objective of the garden being to “acquaint the residents of and visitors to Alberta with the cultural and historic backgrounds of Japanese gardens and to establish a monument to the contributions made to Canadian culture by Canadian of Japanese origin.”
The garden unofficially opened on July 3, 1966 with 35,561 people visiting that summer. It was officially opened in 1967.
Construction was overseen by Masami Sugimoto – no relation to Dawn – of Osaka Prefecture University whose influence and vision are both seen in the master plan.

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