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Welcome to the County
A young Wellington family enjoys the Hillier beaches. It is an escape. Their two young children, ages two and seven, are free to run ahead, to explore and play. For a busy young family, the Hillier dunes and beaches are accessible, liberating and free. Well, not quite.
They wandered a bit further last week. It was a glorious late spring day. Blue skies. Bright warm sun. The water still too chilly but for the bravery and determination of children. When this family returned to their car, they found not one but two parking tickets. Each demanding $300 for the offence of parking along the side of the road at the end of Huyck’s Point Road. They had been gone for a couple of hours. A $600 walk on the beach.
Roadside parking is an issue on North Beach Road (County Road 27) for about 20 or so days a year. Unable to find parking in the provincial park on certain summer days, visitors either turn around and go home, while some abandon their cars along the side of the road and walk in. Occasionally, the string of vehicles lines both sides of the roadway. It is a fire safety concern.
Let’s consider the array of solutions before the municipality on North Beach Road. It could increase enforcement on the days most likely to be a problem. It is not so hard to predict. Long weekends. Temperatures over 30°C for a few days in a row. On days when Sandbanks closes its gates before noon. It’s not rocket science, as my kids are fond of reminding their father.
Or North Beach Provincial Park could expand parking inside the facility to serve the growing customer demand. Park attendants could remind folks walking in that they are likely to receive a hefty ticket if they are parked on—say, the south side of the road. There are a great many reasonable responses available.
Instead, the County has opted to make it illegal to park on every road with access to Hillier beaches. Punishable by massive fines. On North Beach Road, as well as Bakker Road, Arthur Road and Huyck’s Point Road. A broad sweep of policy cobbled together in haste.
Hysterically, each of these Hillier water access roads (and dozens of other County roads and streets) are subject to different rules. It is illegal, for example, to park on either side of North Beach Road within 150 metres of the entrance or west of the entrance. On Bakker Road, it is an infraction to park on the north side from a specific address—858 Bakker Road—to the water. On Arthur Road, roadside parking is prohibited entirely. On Huyck’s Point Road, it is a crime to park on either side within 200 metres of the water. No signage explains any of this. As a visitor or resident, you are expected to know and abide by the recently conjured hodgepodge of regulations. Or pay the County a huge fine.
To enforce this heavy-handed overreach, the County has hired rent-a-cops—at a net cost to the taxpayer—to prowl these roads and write up tickets, apparently indiscriminately. ‘This car already has a ticket? Well, let’s write another. That will teach them.’
Who is being served by such a ham-fisted stupidity?
A theme running through Shire Hall’s Tourism Management doctrine is to promote a balance between locals and visitors. On the face of it, this is a cringe-inducingly misguided policy goal that doesn’t even seek to mask its distaste for visitors. But even if it were a worthy ambition, how does punishing a village family with a $600 fine—for something they have done a dozen times freely before without hurting anyone—ease the aggravation some folks feel toward tourists?
The end of Huyck’s Point Road is lined by farm fields on one side and impenetrable buckthorn on the other. There is no discernable difference between parking your car at the end of the road or 201 metres from it (which is legal). It hurts no one. It impacts no one.
There is no balance being restored. Punishing families for using Hillier beaches won’t restore any rights or liberties to those who feel aggrieved by the presence of visitors. The only folks at risk of being offended by parking along Huyck’s Point, Arthur and Bakker Roads are a handful of folks who are uncomfortable sharing the Hillier shoreline with others.
So, if safety isn’t the issue, and parking on the side of the road for a couple of hours isn’t hurting anyone, what are we doing? What is the public good that is being achieved? Or is it just a giant middle finger to the visitors who drive this economy? Folks, who merely seek a day on the beach? Is that the sum of our collective view of tourism? Is this the resentful lot we’ve become?
A clear and valid purpose must be a principle of lawmaking. Otherwise, laws—and bylaws—become arbitrary and rightly viewed as illegitimate. Or selfserving. Speed traps in Georgia.
In the name of Tourism Management, the County has foisted an odious collection of regulations upon this landscape. Mean spirited. Envious. Bitter. And ultimately self-defeating.
The blowback has just begun. In a frenzied rush to restore some mythical balance, the County has made every sore point worse. Worse for visitors. Worse for residents. Worse for Shire Hall.
It is likely too late for this season to unwind all the bad regulations—but Council can, and should, call off the dogs. Ease up on the enforcement where safety isn’t a demonstrated problem. Send the rent-a-cops back to the mall.
In the meantime, chill out. Calm down. Let a COVID-shaped summer flow over us without a kneejerk response. Let the smart folks inside the County’s Community and Economic Development team develop a sensible—and sensitive—set of plans to replace this hot mess.
Let’s celebrate the unique and wonderful access to Hillier dunes and beaches—and every other water access—across this near-island. Let’s consider replacing vindictiveness as a policy response with some grace.
Council has gone way to far with bylaws and restrictions. Common sense be dammed. What is next, bylaw for Mom and Pop vegetable stands, or the guy selling bundles of firewood at the end of driveway. Ridiculous
Thank you for bringing up this important issue in the County, however I think that the article does not give due credit to our Council for the effort underway to respond to many complaints from residents (in the west end) about the hugely problematic influx of day-tourists; along with the efforts of our good-hearted and overworked Bylaw Enforcement Dept.
At hand, there are a number of sensitive issues around parking, walking, safety, and intrusion on local private property. There is also the issue of local-access verses out-of-county invasions. The over-running comes from vehicles from Belleville, Trenton, Montreal and, of course, the GTA.
This is not a single-year problem. It has been building for several years and the prognosis is that it will continue. In my over 60 years in the County, I’ve seen the changes from farming, canning and vacation cottages, to the unique mix we have today of country homes, Airbnb’s, and wineries coexisting with historic communities & local families.
Let’s give our leaders the deference and encouragement they need to find a balanced and effective long-term strategy that serves all our needs, while they try to put a lid on our current pain.
Thank you…
Here, here Rick!!! It’s refreshing to read a counterpoint to the increasingly hysterical – bordering on xenophobic – anti tourist hyperbole that seems to have driven an ever growing list of ill conceived motions and bylaws coming out of Shire Hall.
Thank you, Wellington times, for reporting on this. The new county bylaw 75-2021, imposing parking restrictions is poorly thought out. It is especially unfair to west side of county residents, who are in 4 out of the ten summer parking restriction zones. Sandbanks park is already open In Early May, and you can park and go for a walk, so that end of the county does not have the same problem the west side has with this bylaw. Specifically, this bylaw precludes anybody for being able to go to north beach for 82 days each year. We now have nowhere to go for daily exercise in spring and fall. Within the summer months we support the park and buy seasonal permits or day passes. The dates from when bylaw is implemented May 1 until when park opens June 12, and when park closes sept 19 until when bylaw ends oct31, basically chokes out the locals and anybody quite frankly from going to north beach,during spring and fall, when most are just out for a one hour walk. Equally, the public areas of shoreline access from wellers bay, to hyucks point, is no longer accessible. Let’s hope shire hall hears us, and makes changes before fall. I thought the “haveyoursay’ surveys were in part to help find a balance for locals during tourism season. This bylaw punishes locals for the behaviours of tourists last year. Nice…..