"For the second time in just over a week, the majority on Burlington City Council supported conflicting actions and embarrassed themselves on a waterfront issue. First Council decided to sell public waterfront land to private interests when Council’s stated goal is to acquire such lands for the public good. Then it confused a 35 year old vision of a park with the reality of today and allowed a community outside Burlington to determine the fate of destruction for a community inside Burlington."

"Our volunteer committee of citizens from each ward continues to support Beachway Park and the beach community co-existing as they have since the park’s inception and the acquisition/retention of actual waterfront property to enhance and promote public access. "

Council will decide Tues. Oct. 15 whether to sell a parcel of public waterfront land between Market St. and St. Paul St., running behind three private homes (see map). The public lands are owned in part by the Ministry of Natural Resources (along the shoreline) and the city. The homeowners who back onto this land wish to purchase the land to extend their private properties to the shoreline.

My Take:  I support retaining the land in public hands for the reasons outlined below.

Keeping these waterfront lands in public hands honours our City and Regional Official Plans, which encourage steps to build a continuous waterfront, trail along (or near) the shoreline. If we lose these lands it will be hard to get them back, at least not without granting significant height/density through redevelopment in exchange for public shoreline access.