Columnists
Councillor Harper’s Saturdays
Wellington Ward Councillor Mike Harper had the summer from hell last year. He spent his Saturdays interceding in fights between those trying to turn their boat trailers around by the Belleville Street boat ramp, and the owners of the adjacent properties who didn’t want interlopers in their private parking spaces. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was fielding complaints from people who were frustrated trying to access a closed Wellington Beach, and from residents bothered by both the antics of those frustrated visitors and the number of unfamiliar vehicles taking up prime downtown parking spaces.
These incidents were just the local manifestation of a problem that was hitting the County all over: visitors— especially day trippers—were overwhelming the County’s resources. Wellington was ground zero because it was the beach of last resort, trailing Sandbanks and North Beach.
Something had to be done: some limit had somehow to be put on the numbers of people coming into the County headed for our beaches. It was better to think in terms of spoiling the County experience for a few—denying access to latecomers —than spoiling it for all visitors with overcrowding. Doing nothing was not an option if this year’s numbers were to come anywhere close to last year’s.
So the County commissioned its staff to draw up a Tourism Management Plan—a complex task given the number of players involved. Sandbanks and North Beach are provincially managed, while Wellington Beach is under municipal jurisdiction. The feds and Quinte Conservation have their oar in too. Working partnerships had to be formed.
Council, sitting as Committee of the Whole, took its first look at the draft plan on January 28. The plan contemplates a range of stopgap measures. First of all, it proposes a distant early warning system using social media in the major nearby metropolitan centres, to go with off Highway 401 signage, to give up-to-the minute-warnings about capacity limits.
At home, it is proposed to close the Belleville Street boat launch for 2021; introduce a parking reservation and payment system for Wellington beach; levy hefty fines for parking in the wrong places; make signage better; have more portable toilets and litter boxes; train County staff to be tourism ambassadors; and get visitors to sign a pledge to respect the integrity of the County’s landscape. (That latter one might be a great project for a high school English class).
Councillors and staff would readily admit that, if these were the only measures that were being taken, the County’s approach to over-tourism would be a day late and a dollar short. So County staff are concurrently working with a consultant to come up with a Destination Development Strategy. You have until February 26 to send in comments on Wellington Beach issues and to participate in a short online survey on attitudes to tourism, both accessed through the County’s website.
That Destination Development report will no doubt come up with a strategy for providing more incentives for visitors to come in the shoulder and off seasons. The Tourism Management Plan gives a glimpse of what is to come when it refers to the 2021 launch of some “experiential” programs offering tourists more access throughout the low season to the County’s agricultural heritage, “highlighting horses, alpacas, bees and animals from small mixed-use farms.” Sounds intriguing.
The draft Tourism Management Plan proposed an administrative budget of $590,000, half of which would come from user charges and the rest principally from municipal accommodation tax reserves, with some from general capital reserves. The exact budget will depend upon Council’s disposition on the various charges proposed in the plan, but an expenditure of that magnitude is likely in the cards whatever the final plan looks like.
Council’s reaction to the draft Tourism Management Pan was positive, although changes were called for in the setting of rules for the Belleville Street boat ramp, and Wellington Beach bulk water access, beach access and parking. Staff are going to rethink and rewrite large parts of the plan based on what they heard.
The importance of tourism in the County can’t be overstated. Our draft Official Plan—to be considered by Council today at 6 p.m. in another Zoom meeting— has four economic development objectives. The first is to protect the “high quality of place” experience as an economic driver. The second is to strengthen the agriculture sector. Third is to use our cultural, heritage and agricultural assets to attract visitors and business investors. And the fourth is to “enhance tourism’s role in providing employment opportunities within the County’s economy.” The draft Plan also states that in 2016 there were some 11,415 jobs in the County. Directly or indirectly, tourism helps sustain all of them.
It is therefore important that Council’s Tourism Management work be conducted in a spirit of looking for “wins” for both locals and tourists, rather than “wins” for locals over tourists. Happy tourists are our best promoters and our future new residents. It would behoove the County to take a transparent and reasoned approach that is justifiable to both constituencies.
And it would be nice if they could also give Councillor Harper his Saturdays back.
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