A different way

It was an illusion. The municipality does not have the means to provide boat launching access in Wellington. Period. It never had the land, the operational skills or the inclination to manage these two boat launches. At the end of this season, council must signal and then proceed to close both launches in the village. Permanently. In the meantime, it should procure a new, more secure, more viable boat launch into West Lake. It cannot let chaos continue to reign at these launches.

Chris Bowles was the sheriff. The chief magistrate and governor of the Wellington harbour. He had big dreams, big ambitions. He understood its enormous potential, as he scanned the waterfront from the porch of his fishing and boat rental business. He lobbied, cajoled and prodded municipal officials to expand their facilities, maintain its properties and collect the revenue these assets generated.

He understood that a humming harbour was good for his business. But it was more than that for Chris. He preferred order. A Brit by birth, a Singaporean by disposition, he was fond of structure.

But all he could see from the deck of the Reel Fishing shop was neglect by its owner— the municipality—and the chaos that ensued. Abandoned vehicles and trailers. Disgustingly foul public washrooms. Garbage bins so stuffed, folks carelessly tossed garbage nearby—trash spilling like lava over an evergrowing fetid mountain.

So, Chris became the law in the harbour. He collected revenue. Scolded the thoughtless. He insisted that massive boats shuffle around the marina to maximize revenue and accommodate more customers. He patrolled the beachside too. Keeping order. Protecting trees. He pushed municipal officials to better maintain the place. To expand its revenuegenerating ability. He raised money for a rescue boat.

Even after he sold the fishing shop, Chris, was a presence, albeit a diminished lawman, at the harbour. Sadly, Chris passed way in 2017. And with him went any semblance of order in the marina. It has since reverted to its natural condition—unmanaged chaos.

This situation isn’t the fault of the County. It inherited an unworkable situation. Chris made it work for a while, but it was sustainable only as long as he was in running it. There was no succession plan.

Here are the big problems. One: the municipality doesn’t own the land upon which the beachside boat launch is located. That small parcel of land is a legacy of a time when the North Docks restaurant was a brickmaking plant when a conveyor shuttled sand across the harbour to feed the plant. The upshot is that the County pays a third party rent for a public boat launch. It is not sustainable.

Two: The County, likely, owns the land upon which the northside boat launch is situated. But it owns no other property around it. Other than, that is, the bottom few dozen metres of Belleville Street. There is no turnaround. No temporary parking (save for a lot a few hundred metres north of the harbour). There are few facilities. And poor, if any, revenue capture.

So, in the absence of order, folks use the restaurant parking lot, as a turnaround or at Chris’s former fishing shop (though the opportunity to circle through the Northdocks lot is more appealing). But it isn’t easy to operate a restaurant, or any other manner of business, when your parking lot functions as a turnaround, and temporary parking for a municipal boat launch. Lately, the owners and operators of these properties have blocked access from Belleville Street to prevent its use as a turnaround. (As is their right and perhaps their responsibility to manage liability risk).

The result is that in recent weeks, all manner of stupidity has broken loose. Folks were backing boat and trailer from the arena, all the way down Belleville Street to deposit or retrieve their craft. Others were blocking Main Street as they attempt to negotiate the turn onto Belleville Street, in reverse.

So now we pay folks to sit in a truck and manage the mayhem. It won’t work. It can’t work. The revenue from the marina as it is structured is simply insufficient to fund this service without continuing to absorb a significant loss each season.

More than this, there is an opportunity for Wellington harbour to become an important economic engine. We know this, because the village elders paid a handsome sum in 1988 for a study to examine the harbour and its potential as a marina. It found there are millions of dollars floating past Wellington each season. But the village had neither the property or the investment dollars to convert this plan into a reality in 1988. Sadly, that investment would have been returned many times by now had they managed it.

Three decades later and we still don’t have the land. Or the investment dollars. There remains, however, an opportunity to work with the folks who own the land around the harbour, to begin to unleash this opportunity. But the boat launches must go. Belleville Street south of Main Street should be closed to vehicle traffic.

Many folks will howl at this. They will argue some form of squatter’s rights: that they have always launched their boats here and therefore that should continue. Forever. It is nonsense, with no legal or practical standing. That said, the municipality ought to look at another (lower-cost real estate) site for a Wellington boat launch. It seems a basic service for a village of our size and energy. Just not where the launches exist now.

Councillor Mike Harper is leading the effort to put order to the Wellington harbour and beach. (Parking tolls for beach access, for example, are welcome.) And the village councillor is taking the heat for the changes that are coming for these properties. It is misplaced.

Past village councils allowed, and in some cases enabled, this dysfunctional harbour to devolve into chaos. In fairness, land ownership was always convoluted (with random patches of federal, provincial and private lands scattered around the harbour edges like a tattered quilt). But the notion that these boat launches worked in some foggy past is strictly an illusion. They only functioned (poorly) before, because of municipal indifference and, for a short period, Chris Bowles’s determination and will.

It’s time to fix a long-standing problem.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca