By Doug Draper
The chairman of Niagara, Ontario’s regional government has won support from Canadian and U.S. municipal leaders around the Great Lakes a resolution calling for more public access to the lakes’ shorelines.
A stretch of Lake Erie shoreline, fenced off to the public in the Fort Erie area.
The resolution was passed by the municipal leaders at the annual conference this June of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Cities Initiative in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In its own words, it “encourages the U.S. and Canadian federal/ provincial, First Nations and tribes to work collaboratively with municipal governments and other parties to affirm support of the right of all citizens to walk along the shoreline of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence (River).”
Approved by the multi-member organization on June 17, the resolution goes on to call on the three levels of government on both sides of the international border “to take back into public ownership waterfront properties along the Great Lakes as they become available to ensure public access for future generations.”
Partington circulated a copy of the resolution at a recent regional council meeting along a copy of a presentation he made to GLSLCI members in Milwaukee. In the presentation, he outlined Niagara’s regional government’s plans to establish a ‘Waterfront Enhancement Strategy’ which, he said, will include “a set of principles that all of our communities can use to guide future waterfront acquisitions, plans for new development (both public and private), improve public access and ownership to our beaches, protect the environment and preserve our heritage.”
Niagara Regional Chairman Peter Partington
Kim Craitor, a member of the provincial legislature for the Niagara Falls riding, tabled a private member’s bill earlier this year for more public access to lakeshore areas. But that bill – at least the second of its kind Craitor has tabled in recent years – has yet to receive the support of the Ontario government.
Craitor’s bill is a response to concerns frequently raised by area residents about sections of some shorelines along Lake Erie being fenced off to the public by nearby property owners.
(Click on Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to residents in our greater binational Niagara region.)
Niagara At Large 
Was Doug Martin at this meeting? If so, how did he explain away the town’s support of turning public beachfront land into a vertical gated community of 12 stories?
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Perhaps Messrs. Partington and Craitor could work with the federal government to open up the former DND property in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and establish a park that provides public access to Lake Ontario without needing a concert ticket.
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Again the Busbridge doesn’t include anough information to allow a reasoned consideration of his comment! Of course, that may be his agenda – mislead by omission.
Of the near 300acre DND property in Niagara-on-the-Lake less than 70 acres is proposed as a music park – with the overwhelming majority of the former rifle range to become an historic battlefield park, picnic area and an unchanged Niagara Shores park.
Also the music park will operate just 17 weeks a year. That would leave the majority of the year with the entire site available.
Plenty of public access to waterfront where none exists now.
The fact is, the music park makes the entire site, including the waterfront, more accessible.
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I make no comment as to Mr. Williams’ intentions, inclusions or omissions.
The fact is that both Project Niagara and Parks Canada have been silent on the question of public access. There have been intimations regarding the battlefield site and picnic areas, but there are no plans. None. Not for the 17 week period proposed for the festival, not for the remainder of the year.
The same amount of land is “available” for a park now. Availability does not a park make.
As for the $75-80 million infrastructure required for the proposed festival site, such a development carries environmental risk. In today’s Standard, an official of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority used the Lakeshore property as example when cautioning officials to be careful not to harm ecologically sensitive areas as they attempt to provide more public access. \\http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2644415
A recent Species At Risk assessment for that property found four plants and fifteen animals on the Species At Risk list. It stands to reason that the larger the development, the more invasive it becomes and the higher the risk becomes.
By the way, the study was limited in scope, and the report recommends further analysis as there may be additional Species At Risk on the site. The report echoes the caution issued by the NPCA.
I know no one who opposes the concept of a music festival. Project Niagara supporters might forgive those of us who have concluded that the risks associated with the proposed location are simply unacceptable.
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The lakeshore should belong to everyone! Sharon is certainly right about the “vertical gated community”. No government, be it reigional, municipal, provincial or federal could care less what the people who they “represent” want. We’re just around to pay the bills and be abused. This is true in every facet of our lives, HST, hospital closures, you name it. They know what the majority wants and just ignore it!
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The Great Lakes and their shoreline belongs to the governments of USA & Canada by a treaty signed and seales 1814 and ensured that the inland seas would be henceforth de-militerized no warships,that.s why the military wanted to use the lakes for target practise and were denied, we in Canada have a confusion by real estate salespeople between Provincial waterfront and Federal waterfront, so lake front property owners are taking land that is not theirs and annexing it. a defacto aquisition of public land. The Federal Government should read these folks the riot Act and take back there ownership.
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But in Fort Erie, a mayor, a town planner, and a majority of elected councilors tell us that “the path” to increased public waterfront access, enjoyment and ownership is best paved by transferring ownership of a significant portion of a public waterfront park to a private developer…
“Revolutionary Logic” or just plain revolting?
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It really galls us that the Federal and Provincial governments are considering giving around $25 million dollars each to put in this music festival. And in the meantime our hospital system is crumbling before our very eyes. Ask anyone in the Niagara Peninsula outside of special interest groups in Niagara on the Lake, if they’d rather have a music festival in NOTL, or their hospital system restored so that people have access when they need it.
If this Music Festival is supposed to be such a wonderful thing, and expects to bring in money to the area, then let those who believe this, (including the two symphonies) to put up their own money. Oh – I forgot – they don’t have any money, so they need taxpayers money.
Tom & Joan Busbridge
tbusbridge@cogeco.ca
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