Kelowna Mayor supports opening up the foreshore for public access

The Mayor of Kelowna, along with few City Council members, expressed support earlier this week for opening up the foreshore to the public.

According to Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran, the City would take issue with any attempts by lakeshore homeowners attempting to rebuild structures that hinder public access to the foreshore.

“I'm in favor making sure that the public has access to areas where they are legally allowed to be. And so if there are things like fences and retaining walls that obstruct into areas where people are legally allowed to be, we will certainly take issue with that,” said Basran.

The news comes in the wake of strong winds and high water levels causing immense damage to private structures positioned along the foreshore between Kelowna’s City Park and the mouth of Mission Creek.

For some Kelowna residents, the recent weather and subsequent damage have presented an opportunity to prevent the reconstruction of private property that hinders public access to the Okanagan Lake foreshore.

Indeed, according to Al Janusas, a spokesperson for Pandosy Lakeshore Active Neighbourhoods of Kelowna (PANKelowna), a recently established citizen’s group that advocates for public waterfront accessibility, the damage caused by the high water levels is nature presenting Kelowna with a “fresh start” to open up the foreshore.

"Some docks got destroyed now by the flood, it's unfortunate and I feel bad for those people,” said Kelowna resident Al Janusas. “But to replace those docks, the Province has the responsibility to issue or not issue permits. I would like to see the Province withhold permission to replace the docks that have been damaged or destroyed. But if they do issue permits, at least I want them to conform to the Provincial laws which require a stairway on either side of them so that people can walk along the foreshore and get over these obstacles."

According to provincial regulations outlined in the Land Act and city bylaws, property owners are required to ensure that public access to the Crown foreshore is maintained.

However, as highlighted by Janusas, there are a number of homeowners who have built private structures that don’t conform to the provincial and municipal laws and hinder public access.

To get an idea of how many private structures impede access to the foreshore, watch this video uploaded to Youtube that reveals footage of Kelowna's waterfront.

According to an August 2014 article from Pihl Law Corporation, a mid-size law firm with client relationships throughout the Okanagan Valley, there are some homeowners along the waterfront who were only just finding out at that time that they didn’t have the right to expand their private property onto the foreshore.

“In the past few years, the Ministry of Forest, Lands and Natural Resources has directed additional resources towards reviewing and enforcing the rules and regulations associated with the use and construction of docks, retaining walls and other structures along the shoreline. As a result, waterfront property owners throughout the Okanagan-Shuswap are finding out that they don’t ‘own’ their dock or waterfront deck and have far fewer rights than they otherwise believed they had,” read the article from Pihl Law.

“Adding to the problem, many properties were subsequently sold and new purchasers may not have been made aware that there could be problems with the dock and waterfront structures they were purchasing, Depending on the nature of the property in question, the waterfront structure – in particular retaining walls and shoreline decks – may have been integral to the value the purchaser was willing to pay for the property.”

So why wasn’t anything done by the Province or the City to prevent the building of these structures in the first place if they did indeed breach existing laws?

According to Al Janusas, this situation has come about in part due to a lack of national resource officers (NROs).

“In the last seven years between 2010 and 2017, the previous provincial government cut the number of NRO's in the Thompson-Okanagan region. They cut the number of NRO's by 27.5% in the last seven years,” said Janusas. “The unfortunate upshot of them cutting the workers is that almost no enforcement has been done here in Kelowna. And they don't have a natural resource officer posted in Kelowna. Kelowna is the biggest city in the interior of the Province and there are no natural resource officers posted here."

The argument that private structures have been allowed to be built due to a lack of public resources and enforcement is also shared by Phil Law.

“Unfortunately, a significant number of docks or structures were not built in conformity with the guidelines in place at the time,” continued the statement from Phil Law. “It appears that due to an absence of resources to inspect and enforce the guidelines, some owners or companies simply built docks and other structures (including retaining walls and shoreline decks) in the belief that they would never be caught or, if caught, they wouldn’t be ordered to remove the offending structures.”

Moving forward, Mayor Basran has said the city will only approve the reconstruction of fences or retaining walls that don’t obstruct public access to the foreshore.

"What we can do is when it comes to approvals is make sure that things like fences and retaining walls don't obstruct into areas where the public is legally allowed. So that is certainly something we'll be monitoring as people rebuild,” said Basran.

In the process, Basran also expressed a desire to see the Province do their part to help enforce the laws as well.

“All levels of government need to work to make sure that the rules are followed when the rebuilding takes place. So it's our hope the Provincial government will allocate resources in order for their rules to be enforced.”

City Council member Luke Stack has also expressed support for the developing an unbroken walkway from the Mission Creek greenway to Rotary Beach.

“I believe the focus should be on developing an unbroken walkway from the Mission Creek greenway to Rotary Beach. This is an ambitious but achievable goal. The City has already established an unbroken walkway from Rotary Marshes in the north to the bridge in downtown Kelowna. These two beach walkways are significant assets for the Public,” said Stack.

Plans to start reconstructing damaged docks and fences likely won’t begin until the water levels in the Okanagan Lake have receded to normal levels.

However, in the meantime, both the city and residents are preparing.

According to City Council member Ryan Donn, councilors are aware of the situation and will be discussing the matter in more depth next week.

“This item came up in council items yesterday and we will get an update from staff next Monday,” Tweeted Donn.

Kelowna resident Brenda Bachmann will also be working with PLANKelowna to organize a peaceful protest before the end of summer where participants will attempt to walk along the foreshore from City Park to Mission Creek.

“PLANKelowna will definitely be participating in this Walk The Beach Parade later this summer. We'll post the date as soon as we know,” read a post from PLANKelowna on their Facebook page.

Ultimately, despite the Mayor and City Councillors expressing support for a publicly accessible foreshore, there is still a long way to go: The Province will likely need to allocate more resources as well as employ more officers to enforce the regulations, and there’s still a long time to wait until water levels recede to regular levels.