Boat dock meeting leaves Lakeland flooded with frustration

The meeting, scheduled to run from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., ran past 4 p.m. with comments and questions from the public.

Reeve Al Christensen explained why the policy was being proposed. He said docks are blocking pedways, municipal reserves and the environment are being destroyed as brush is being cleared away for them.

“(It is in) direct conflict with the reason public reserves exist – public reserves are for public use and access,” he said, adding people are also placing docks on lakefront property when they don’t live on the lake front.

Lakeland worked on the document with the help of the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Municipal Affairs, Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Transport Canada.

They needed some way to put in regulation, and Christensen said that was the only way they could gain control.

Ratepayers are not happy with the policy as it stands.

Karen Bosker was the first to voice her opinion. She said every cabin should be able to have a dock, but agrees with the document where it says they should be shared.

“Who wants to buy my cabin, if I decide to sell it, if I don’t have access to the lake,” she said. Bosker explained when she purchased her cabin 25 years ago, they had a dock in a lagoon type area and it never disrupted the environment.

Melody Kenney’s family has had their cabin since 1965.

“My grandchildren are now the fourth generation enjoying Emma Lake,” she said.

“I am not a lake-front cabin, but when my parents built our cottage they had to apply for a permit for a dock.”

She explained she has nothing against the permit process council is suggesting, but said she has been sharing a dock with neighbours since the cabin was built and thinks thing are working fine.

“Why is a lake front owner entitled to a dock and I am not,” she said. “Where do we put our boats?”

Roger Bell has been going to Emma Lake all his life and owns a lake-front cabin.

“The biggest issue seems to be is the unfair discrimination against off-lake cabin owners and their pending loss of having a boatlift or a dock on the lake,” he said.

Bell’s personal issue was with the boathouse section of the proposed policy which states that boat houses that are not on private property may need to be removed or relocated. He threatened to head up a potential class-action lawsuit if council makes people move their boathouses.

Leslie Tuchek was concerned about the future environmental impacts on the watershed. She said with the potential for several hundred new residents coming in in the next few years, regulations need to be put in place now.

They have been looking at the policy and reviewing aspects of it, such as allowing more than one boatlift per dock, Christensen said.

He said he never though he would have to bring in the policy

“If anybody would have told me two years ago I would be up here proposing this policy I would have told them they have rocks in their head. I have never wanted to go this direction, fought it tooth and nail, but I have been convinced there is no other way.”

During the meeting issues and suggestions were brought up such as postponing the introduction of the whole policy until 2012, making sure there marinas in place before implementing it, issues over buoys for camps, wheelchair access with regulated dock size, implementing a boat launch fee and the potential for introducing it into one subdivision at a time.

After the meeting he said those solutions and suggestions simply won’t work – any solution is going to be complex and there is no way to appease everyone.

Christensen and the council had already received 300 pieces of mail about the proposed policy and knew what they were getting into with the meeting.

They are going to take into account everything they heard and take the document back to the committee for amendments, he said.

klavoie@panow.com

by Kellah Lavoie

Boat dock meeting leaves Lakeland flooded with frustration

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