Brian Lee
Visitors and locals around here often grumble about the irony of living so close to so much water with so little public access to it. But we have plenty of access — it’s just unmarked and undeveloped. Commonly called road ends, they are 20-metre (66-foot) Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure right-of-ways extending to ocean and lakes. They are often overgrown or concealed by adjacent landowners who conveniently blend the landscape to give the impression of private property.
A rough map on page 14 shows them sprinkled liberally around Pender Harbour but they can be found everywhere development meets water. The issue quietly came into view last month with the dismantling of a popular trail in the Sakinaw Ridge development that provided access to nearby Sakinaw Lake (story p. 6). Sakinaw Lake has the least public access of any lake around and is basically privatized — but Pender Harbour isn’t much better.
Sure, there are marinas and a few natural pull-outs but, historically, the early planning that occurred here all but ignored including access for those who didn’t already live on the water. That could be because, at one time everyone did live on the water.
In my neighbourhood, there’s a road end across the street and many more down the road; all are obscured, unmarked and forbidding. Most are also steep which, according to Trevor Fawcett, SCRD parks planning co-ordinator, makes them expensive candidates for development and maintaining.
But the District of Sechelt, which doesn’t often get much credit — it’s been said it takes a generation to get a building permit there and if a key staff member hasn’t quit before lunch, they fire one to keep the average up — has managed to develop an impressive collection of beach access trails. You’ll notice the driftwood signs along the highway into Sechelt marking trails down to the beach. DoS parks supervisor Perry Schmitt told me he was hired to help kickstart the project 20 years ago.
Since then it has been a council priority and Sechelt now boasts 51 beach access trails from West Sechelt to Davis Bay and Tuwanek. Schmitt says they cost an average of $10,000 each to build but a recent steep one in Sandy Hook cost $20,000. Sechelt should be proud of their accomplishment but the DoS has one advantage SCRD rural areas like ours do not — they control the road ends that jut off the main highway.
A similar initiative here would require close consultation between the SCRD and MOTI, which could insert a time-consuming and costly step. Engineering or geotechnical reports might be required before either agency would accept liability for their development and subsequent management.
But that shouldn’t stop anyone from blazing a trail down on their own. Except ancient survey pins make property lines almost impossible to find — so, by doing so, you run the risk of trespassing on private property.
Here’s one solution:
With community input, the SCRD and MOTI could commit to surveying a selection of the best candidates in various neighbourhoods. The public would know exactly where these ignored public assets lie and then, armed with machetes and clippers, we could do it ourselves.
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