DEHART COMMUNITY PARK
Kelowna, BC
Situated in Kelowna’s Lower Mission neighbourhood, DeHart Community Park is a 3.6-hectare landscape that sensitively integrates intensive active and passive programming into a high-performance, climate-positive framework. BENCH worked with the City of Kelowna to establish a project-specific definition of carbon neutrality that accounted for embodied, rather than just operational, carbon. Using Pathfinder and other embodied carbon calculator tools, the team compiled a custom database of emission and sequestration unit rates to allow a comparative evaluation of design options. The design followed a methodology that treated carbon as a fixed parameter alongside financial and program requirements, and the park was designed for 2080 climate projections to ensure long-term sequestration and resilience.
BENCH developed guiding principles informed by a review of best practices for a low-carbon resilience approach to climate mitigation and adaptation planning. The five principles were quite simple: minimize carbon emissions, maximize long-term sequestration, prioritize ecosystem services and biodiversity, plan for adaptation and resilience, and centre user experience. From these flowed a set of specific, actionable strategies that could be implemented in the design of the park.
Strategies included the prioritization of re-use of on-site materials – such as organic soils, stone, and wood; preferential selection of lower-carbon materials and assemblies; consideration of end of life strategies for materials used in the park; protection and enhancement of habitat for wildlife; respect for site hydrology; cooling with trees; and provision of stormwater detention for peak events, amongst numerous others. The park opened to the public in May 2025 and has become a bustling third place, buzzing with life and energy throughout the seasons.
Awards:
Canadian Society of Landscape Architects
2025 Climate & Energy Action Award
Community Energy Association
Community Excellence Award for Environmental Sustainability
Southern Interior Local Government Association
