A Brief Commentary by Doug Draper
It was one of those media releases that hardly had to lunge at your throat, if you’d spent any time following the issue, for a “wow” reaction.
Bay Beach in the Fort Erie, Ontario community of Crystal Beach, the way it has continued to look on a warm summer day.
The wow flashed through like lightning as soon as I read the headline; “Bay Beach Project Canceled” in a New Years Eve release posted on the website for the town of Fort, Erie, Ontario.
The project referred to was a public/private partnership between the town and a private concern called the Molinaro Group to build a more than 10-storey-high condo tower in front of a beach, in the old Crystal Beach area of Fort Erie – a Crystal Beach that remains a home to historic old buildings, mostly one or two storeys high, and one few remaining open beaches for the residents of this region along the Fort Erie shoreline.
The plan for this condo, which Fort Erie Mayor Doug Martin insisted in interviews with this reporter and others was a “win-win” for the beach and the community, in the sense that it would “save” the beach and “enhance” its washrooms, showers and other facilities, nevertheless triggered a lot of rancor in the community – rancor that sometimes got ugly between those in favour of the condo and those who saw it as a first big step in closing off one of the last public beaches along Niagara’s Lake Erie shoreline.
So here we are – whether the condo developer’s decision to suddenly abandon this project had something to do with not being able to sell enough condo units to make the project viable, or further approvals the developer needed for access roads, etc. where a problem – a great summertime, shoreline beach is still there for the public.
Now the challenge for all of us across this greater Niagara region is this; ‘What do we do, as a community of communities, to save this beach for the public in a region where there are so few shoreline areas left for people to enjoy a walk along the sands of two our greatest natural resources – Lake Erie and Lake Ontario?’
Where do we go from here?
A virtual image of the way the high-rise condo would have loomed above Bay Beach. It is an image less than virtual now.
One possibility may be for the Town of Fort Erie to approach Niagara, Ontario’s regional government and ask what opportunities there may be under a program it has to preserve whatever may be available to preserve whatever lakefront lands may be left for public enjoyment. This program is apparently competitive for bids for funding and requires a local municipality to kick in 50 per cent of what the regional government contributes to make it work, but it may be worth a try.
For the regional government’s part, contributing funds to save Bay Beach as a completely open public beach could be a way of showing residents in south Niagara that it cares about their interests as much as it does those of north Niagara. Saving Bay Beach is an opportunity to save what little precious shoreline is left for public recreation and to spread some goodwill.
Before I cut off, I could not help but think of the Lake Ontario shoreline community of Port Dalhousie in St. Catharines as news came out about the end of this high-rise condo project in Fort Erie.
Weren’t the developers planning to build a high-rise condo in Port Dalhousie supposed to be building it by now? Last I read in the St. Catharines Standard, a newspaper that shamelessly supported this condo project from the get go, the developers should have been erecting this condo tower by now. But as of last fall, the paper reported that only about 40 per cent of the condo space for this project was sold on speculation that the tower will happen at all.
Meanwhile, the old Port Mansion building and other infrastructure, in a Port Dalhousie once designated by the province as a “heritage district,” has been ripped down to make way for this tower complex.
Whether or not the Port Dalhousie tower complex is ever built, at least the community of Crystal Beach in Fort Erie still has Bay Beach.
For your information NAL is posting, immediately below, the media release from the Town of Fort Erie on the cancellation of the Bay Beach project.
Bay Beach Project Cancelled
FORT ERIE, December 31, 2013 –In a letter from the law firm Scarfone Hawkins, the Molinaro Group has served notice that it is terminating its Agreement of Purchase and Sale with the Town.
“The Molinaro Group is not prepared to waive its conditions as set-out in subparagraph 5(b) and therefore wishes to exercise its right to terminate the Agreement”, said Scarfone Hawkins.
In exchange for the property, the Molinaro’s had agreed to invest $3.45 million in community improvements. With this decision, those improvements will not proceed.
“The Molinaro Group was within its rights to terminate the Agreement up to December 31, 2013 as set out in the Agreement”, said Interim Chief Admistrative Officer Richard F. Brady, adding “The Molinaro’s offered no reason for their decision.”
Council will be asked to consider the Town’s options in the New Year.
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.)
Niagara At Large 
Fort Erie and other towns on the great Lakes have sold out to developers & privatized beach access since the late 1800’s with the resultant losses to the public. It’s time to take our natural heritage back, not sell it off to the lowest bidder. Look at the old Crystal Beach site! A gated community with no access and crappy looking “boxes full of ticky tacky” houses as Pete Seeger would say. Same with Point Abino, an historic site that has a guard & gate. A travesty!
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We should have stayed with the original plan as outlined in the “Cause study” and the design charrette that followed thereafter..The public had their say, and the “Town” did not listen.. For starters, lets get that ugly old building that was a snack bar—torn down before spring arrives.
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