Tourism Management

Changes coming to the County’s boat launches

Prince Edward County Council is moving ahead with recommendations and bylaw amendments relating to boat launches in the County. A staff report issued several recommendations including having boaters pay for parking through an app instead of paying to launch their boats as staff felt this would be easier and less costly to enforce. The budget required to implement these improvements is $74,020. It is estimated that launches will generate $41,000 in parking revenue. Staff are requesting the remaining $27,020 come from the initial collection of the Municipal Accommodation Tax.

Over the past several years, an unfortunate cycle has emerged where under-investment and poor maintenance of boat launches acts as a disincentive for users to pay their $20 launch fee. A paid parking app will replace cash boxes and envelopes as a means of collecting launch fees from users. Bylaw enforcement will include launches in their rounds to ensure fees are paid and write fines as required, while seasonal attendants will provide a visible presence to encourage payment. The costs will be $20 for a vehicle and trailer and $10 for vehicles.

Earlier this year, council approved Wellington Beach boat launch having reduced hours from May to September, with the ramp unavailable for launching from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends and holidays. The Belleville Street boat launch in Wellington will be closed permanently due to traffic congestion and access issues.

Councillor John Hirsch believed that these actions were being taken to deal with the tourism problem and not in favour of the residents of the County. “There are folks who think that we are going too far in worrying about torusim and not really helping County residents who for years have been using these facilities,” said Hirsch.

Todd Davis, Director of Community Development and Strategic Initiatives, explained that it was nearly impossible to logistically manage the Belleville Street boat launch. “There are significant challenges with continuing to operate the Belleville Street boat launch. We don’t have property rights on either side of the road,” explained Davis. “If you want to put a boat in the water off Belleville Street. You have to turn around at some point and that turnaround becomes Wellington Main Street. I accept the locals feel like this is punitive to them because they feel like they are losing an opportunity, however the reality is we don’t have the ability to turn boats around and back them down the road unless we block off Wellington Main Street.”

After spending most of his summer dealing with congestion at Wellington Beach, Councillor Mike Harper, reminded his colleagues it was important to pay attention to what staff has done with the report. “I never saw too many of us down there,” said Harper. “You really needed to have seen what Wellington was like on a weekend in the summer, and you would understand it is not an option to open Belleville Street. What happened last year was we closed Beach Street and tried Belleville Street and we learned very early that wasn’t going to work.” Harper noted that this would allow for meeting boaters half way. “We are giving them the entire chunk of time from Monday to Friday to find some time to use their boats. We are giving them the morning and the evening on both Saturdays and Sundays. I have spoken to a number of them who say that is a reasonable way to start,” said Harper. “This isn’t about accommodating the boaters. It’s about accommodating a whole broad range of users of the beach, boaters being just one of them.”

Councillor Bill Roberts suggested it might be a good faith gesture to allow for launching until 10 a.m. instead of 9 a.m. “If we are going to experiment, would it be worth experimenting at the lenient edge of things,” said Roberts, who also asked what boaters who return before 5 p.m. are supposed to do.

Davis explained that staff wanted to start managing traffic into the beach, but that it might be possible to extend the cut-off time to 10 a.m. He also noted that boats will be able to load back up and leave the beach at any time of day. “When they come back in before 5 p.m., we are not going to stop them from taking their boat out of the water and removing it from the site. What we are saying is there won’t be access to the beach launch to put your boat in the water after 9 a.m. when we start to manage traffic,” said Davis.

CAO Marcia Wallace explained the strategy surrounding the proposal. “Staff are recommending very strongly operationally we close that launch for a number of reasons. The most significant part of this report is that we are proposing to stop charging for launching and start charging for parking. We are doing a very bad job of enforcing launch fees, and we can enforce parking much more successfully and with support and a number of other tools,” said Wallace, who explained this would completely change how the County handles its launches. “We needed to understand the hours of the beach, how the parking works, how all the launches work, because there are a number of elements that would then inform the operational decision we want to make,” she said.

Councillor Jamie Forrester said he couldn’t support the report until an alternate launch in Wellington was supplied as when boaters from out of town arrive to find a closed launch, they will navigate to other launches. “By shutting down Wellington launch and restructuring the other one, all you are doing is transferring Harper’s problem to me. Before I vote to close either one of those launches, I need a secondary launch in Wellington,” said Forrester, who also questioned the revenue loss from boaters who launch their boats at the start of the year for the entire season.

Davis noted that was one of the challenges staff were confronted with. “There is an opportunity to lose some boat launching revenue related to seasonal boats being put in the water. When we reflected on the figures and the boat launching fees that we have been collecting at all the boat launches across Prince Edward County, and we looked at finding a methodology of enforcing without having to hire a staff member to work at each of the boat launches, we felt that if we transition this away from boat launching to parking, it provides a better opportunity for enforcement on our side and a better opportunity to collect as it is easier to monitor vehicles with trailers than it is to try and catch someone in the act of launching and not paying,” said Davis.

Councillor Phil Prinzen, who was chairing the meeting, believed the quickest fix was to close the beach and boat launch to local resident access only. “I believe that our tourists are going to come more and quicker unless we put our foot down. I would love to see Beach Street flipped to all residents. And we keep the boat launch open to all residents. Because residents will treat residents with respect,” said Prinzen, who said the Province announcing free day passes to Provincial parks was a game changer.

This caused Councillor Hirsch to put a motion on the floor to see the beach and launch open to residents only.

Mayor Steve Ferguson believed that was a slippery slope to travel down. “I just want to urge caution. We will be, I’m assuming, in very short order, hearing what the plan is for Sandbanks Provincial Park. We don’t know what is in the plan. We don’t know whether the day use of Sandbanks is going to apply to the parks that may be part of a pilot program for different types of operation,” said Ferguson.

Councillor Phil St-Jean agreed, saying it would be a logistical nightmare. “We need to do the correct thing. The right thing. Not the popular thing,” he said. “We live in a world where we have to share. We cannot start blocking off certain areas in our community solely for our residents.”

The amended motion to open the beach for residents only was rejected. The main motion passed. It will come before council at a future meeting.