Community Amenities
A growing network of parks, public spaces and amenities
At East Fraser Lands, community amenities are delivered alongside the neighbourhood as it takes shape. Guided by long-term planning and ongoing collaboration with the City, each phase of development brings new parks, services, and shared spaces, ensuring the community grows with the people who live here.
Amenity Delivery
Over the past two decades, thousands of Vancouver residents have engaged in the planning for the future of the EFL community. Wesgroup is committed to continuing the successful development of a complete community at East Fraser Lands, including the delivery of much-needed community amenities to serve existing and future residents.
Who is responsible for what?
Wesgroup is responsible for constructing roads and utilties and providing the city with serviced sites for public amenities, while also contributing Community Amenity Contributions (CACs) and Development Cost Levies (DCLs) to fund those amenities. As of 2022, Wesgroup took on the obligation to build and deliver the community centre specifically.
The City is responsible for delivering public amenities such as parks, childcare, affordable housing, schools using development contributions and other available funding sources.
Community Centre
The 2006 ODP envisioned a community center incorporated into a mixed-use development to be delivered by the City. In 2022, Wesgroup took over the obligation to build and deliver a turn-key community center. Learn More about the community center History and Status here.
Parks
The plan includes over 25 acres of park space, anchored by two major neighbourhood parks—Avalon Park and Kinross Park. In addition, riverfront and shoreline parks provide connected greenways and bikeways along the waterfront. The City is responsible for delivering parks in EFL through development contributions and other available funding sources.
Schools
Land has been set aside for an elementary school in Area 2 (0.44 ha) and a secondary school in Area 1 (0.57 ha). School construction, and operational timelines are managed by the Provincial Government and the Vancouver School Board.
Child Care
The 2006 ODP included 256 childcare spaces across at least four facilities, plus 140 out-of-school care spaces. The 2021 update added 20 new spaces, for a total of 276 spaces. The City is responsible for delivering child care in EFL through development contributions and other available funding sources. Salmon Stone Child Care Centre opened in 2026 with 49 spaces, while the 160-space Willowbrae Childcare Academy, delivered by Wesgroup, opened in 2023.
Affordable Housing
The EFL ODP requires at least 20% of residential units to be available for affordable housing. Wesgroup has met these targets in all rezoned areas and is also providing secured market rental homes, supporting Vancouver’s overall housing supply. Wesgroup is responsible for delivering serviced sites for Affordable Housing, while the City is responsible for building and delivering Affordable Housing in EFL through development contributions and other available funding source.
Parking
Throughout the development of East Fraser Lands, Wesgroup has delivered parking well-above City bylaw requirements to support the needs of River District residents and visitors. Providing additional parking helps ensure convenient access to homes, shops, services, and public spaces as the neighbourhood continues to grow.
Energy Centre
River District Energy (RDE) provides buildings with thermal energy for space heating and hot water, distributing hot water through an underground piping network across the River District community. With 99.9% reliability and virtually no outages, RDE has proven to be a sustainable and efficient energy solution that reduces overall consumption.
As a first in Western Canada, RDE is pioneering the use of waste heat recovery from a garbage incinerator, a groundbreaking approach that enhances energy efficiency.
In June 2025, the new permanent Energy Centre (EC) was completed and is now fully operational, replacing the previous temporary facilities. This modernized system serves the entire River District, supporting 55 buildings across 128 acres and 9.3 million square feet of development.
As both the developer and long-term operator of the Energy Centre, Wesgroup is committed to providing a reliable, cost-effective, and environmentally responsible energy solution for the River District community.
To learn more, please visit:
Community Centre
The community centre at River District remains a critical priority for Wesgroup and the City of Vancouver.
The River District community centre has been contemplated since the original East Fraser Lands planning framework. Under the original model, Wesgroup was responsible for constructing roads and utilities and providing the City with serviced sites for public amenities, while also contributing CACs and DCLs when projects proceed, to fund those amenities. The City was responsible for delivering public amenities such as parks, childcare, affordable housing, schools and the community centre using development contributions and other available funding sources.
In 2022, Council approved a new delivery framework for the Area 1 Waterfront Precinct, shifting the responsibility to deliver the Community Center to Wesgroup. This was supported by the Area 1 CAC offering, previously collected EFL CACs and value associated with removing EFL from the Utilities DCL boundary. The community centre was estimated at approximately $47 million and was to be transferred to the City at completion.
In 2023, Metro Vancouver implemented an unprecedented increase in DCCs, adding an estimated $52 million in costs across River District, including $14 million attributed to Area 1 alone. Wesgroup notified the City that this would undermine the delivery framework for the community centre. The additional density in Area 1 was anticipated to generate approximately $16 million in value toward the community centre; however, the $14 million increase in DCCs effectively eroded that value, diverting funds that could have supported the community centre toward regional infrastructure instead. At the same time, construction costs escalated at unprecedented levels.
Despite this growing cost-of-delivery crisis, Wesgroup, the City and Park Board staff continued to advance the community centre from 2022 through 2024. This included functional programming, the Preliminary Development Permit process, public consultation, detailed design, cost analysis and the submission of a Development Permit application.
Working through the Functional Program and design development was a process that took over 18 months, ultimately culminating into a Development Permit application in 2024.The budget and overall area basis had been established through the rezoning, but the detailed functional program still had to be translated into an actual building. Once established, the functional program resulted in a larger community centre due to the space and support-function requirements, while construction-cost inflation was also running well above the anticipated assumptions. From 2022 through 2024, Wesgroup, the City and Park Board repeatedly tested ways to reduce cost and area while keeping the main program intact to preserve the main community-serving scope. The result was not a lack of activity, but a sustained effort to reconcile a more fully developed functional program while experiencing generational cost escalation while preserving the core community centre scope. To date, Wesgroup has spent ~2.25M on direct community centre design costs.
This process began in 2017 and since then, significant government fee increases have impacted the delivery strategy. The 2018 City of Vancouver Utilities DCL increase took approximately two years to resolve and required the City and Wesgroup to revisit the funding approach. We are now facing a similar challenge following the 2023 Metro DCC increases. In both cases, these charges captured significant development value for regional infrastructure, which was value that could otherwise have supported community amenities in EFL.
Despite these pressures, Wesgroup and the City continue to work together on a viable funding and delivery path for the community centre.
Visit our FAQ section for questions on the community centre
Waterfront
River District has been planned around one of its greatest assets: the Fraser River waterfront. As the community grows, new parks, greenways, public spaces, and ecological areas are being delivered to create a connected network of places to walk, cycle, play, and enjoy nature.
The master plan includes approximately 27 acres of parks and open space, with two north-south park corridors connecting Marine Way to the Fraser River. Together with the Fraser River Waterfront Greenway, these spaces provide accessible walking and cycling connections while restoring fish and wildlife habitat along the riverfront.
New parks and waterfront spaces are being delivered in phases alongside neighbourhood development, creating opportunities for recreation, gathering, and access to the waterfront for current and future residents.
