Dock area issues discussed and clarified

Another discussion Monday night about the dock area, and the question of giving the public false expectations about work that could still take place, led to a request from some councillors to clarify what is still to be done in the dock area.

At issue was an information report from staff, which councillors agreed was a good, even “excellent, spectacular” information report, but one that laid out council motions upon motions made in this term of council and even previous councils, with actions still not carried out, and no budget to do so.

Words like chaos, confusion and misinformation — unintentional, said Coun. Allan Bisback, comparing dock area conversations amongst many interested parties to a game of telephone tag — were used to describe the current state of plans for the dock area, as outlined in the 11-page report. 

Lord Mayor Betty Disero questioned the confusion, at least of councillors, summarizing what she saw in the report.

“I’m a little bit concerned there are so many members of council confused,” she said. There is a master plan council that staff have been trying to follow, approved more than five years ago, but dock area improvements were delayed “with a crisis on our hands, in the 2019 flood.”

Money was spent as staff responded, “or it could have been an even worse disaster,” she said, and it’s taken some time to move forward
from that.

There are currently only two actions on the table to be addressed, she explained. Drainage, with $20,000 now earmarked for that, moved from a plan to spend it on consultants, is still to be completed, and is expected to be carried out this spring.

The other action to be taken is completion of the public parking lot beside the River Beach town homes, work that is also in the master plan, but with more information to come about surface treatments, cost, and where the money will come from. There is also a discussion to be had about making it metered parking.

“If we do those two things, it puts us a step forward in the master plan,” Disero said.

Completing the dock area secondary plan is a separate issue, but a crucial one, she added, and needs to be finished to protect a strip of property along Melville Street. 

“Once we’ve done the secondary plan review and these two other pieces, we’ll have some time to go back and have another look.”

After clarifying the issues, she told councillors Monday night she’d be “ashamed to admit we don’t know what we’re doing.”

But whether or not councillors understand where dock area improvements stand, some residents have also been confused, looking for clarifications, and to do that, Disero  met with them Monday morning to walk around the area and explain, as she did last week with The Local.

The first and most important issue is the potential for flooding in people’s homes, and the urgent need to complete the drainage work.

The $20,000 Disero asked to be earmarked for improved drainage was initially to be spent on consultants to review the town’s master plan, which was approved in 2015, and was to be updated. Very little of that plan has been carried out, she says, and the pressing need is to improve drainage in the reservoir behind the historic culvert.

Earlier this year, engineer and Balls Beach resident Ron Simkus impressed upon Disero that residents in the area are fearful, and want that work completed as soon as possible.

Having followed and been involved in dock area work over several years, including keeping tabs on water levels for residents, Simkus has compiled a spreadsheet of what has been done in the area, how much money has been spent, with what he sees as little result.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, his photo of the reservoir behind the historic culvert explains his concern. Not showing in the photo are the homes nearby. Today, the ground beside the foot path is a metre higher than it was when the photo was taken, and the reservoir where the water will pool is also a metre higher. Many nearby homes were flooded in 2017, and the situation is even more dire this year, he says.

In 2019, town staff had a budget to spend $300,000 from the dock area reserve fund to advance — but not finish — the shoreline stabilization work that began in 2017, Simkus says. Work stopped in the fall of 2020 after $200,000 of stonework was completed.

The remainder of the budget, $100,000, was earmarked for regrading the new slopes to get the water out of the new catchment created by the shoreline work, leaving it as it is now, a metre higher.

“In 2021, none of the planned work was done, but over the year consultants’ fees managed to chip the budget from $100,000 to less than $80,000 remaining. In 2022, consultant studies managed to suck away the last $80,000. The work is still on hold and it’s starting to rain,” Simkus said recently.

“So we begged the Lord Mayor to not let the consultants have the last $20,000 left in the exhausted dock area reserve fund, and asked council to please put shovels in the ground, slope the dirt towards the bottom right corner, dig out the drain pipe buried underneath and put a concrete box to collect the water.”

Disero agreed with the urgency of the situation, and gained councillors’ support for spending that $20,000 on a practical solution to a pressing problem.

Walking along the waterfront at Balls Beach, Disero simplifies what may seem a complicated issue, but is much less so when confronted with the level of the path, and the reservoir below it.

There is a drainage pipe that should be doing its job, but isn’t, she says, and needs to be fixed, which will require some digging along the path. There is also a question of a water garden behind the culvert, but she is quick to explain it’s not intended to be ornamental, it’s to encourage drainage. 

Over by the Melville dock, she points to one of the other much-discussed issues waiting resolution in the area, the completion of the secondary plan, which appears to omit a strip of land along Melville Street, where the King George V is located. That strip has been purchased by a developer, and with no secondary plan to guide it, is open for potential development. That is a separate issue, but one council will also have to tackle, she says.

Going back to the master plan, she indicates the parking lot on River Beach Drive beside the townhomes, that still needs to be updated. It has already been expanded, but Disero says the intention of the master plan is to retain and increase, not reduce, greenspace, and she expects it to be put back the way it was, still leaving sufficient parking space, and refinished with decorated or environmental paving stones rather than asphalt. Staff are still looking into surface possibilities and cost.

Another discussion at council, which began in August, 2021, is also separate from those issues, but became part of the discussion for the future of the area. It’s the issue some councillors say has led to exalted public expectations from a positive reaction and support for a proposal from Tim Balasiuk of Paddle Niagara. He spoke to councillors last summer about a floating dock and small paddlesport launch in an area at the south end of River Beach Drive, between the Fog Horn and the Melville Street dock, where there is now a small pile of rocks. At that time councillors asked for a staff report on the cost of such a launch, which would also require a path, and would allow the use of the River Beach parking lot. 

Also at Monday’s planning meeting was the discussion of a small storage container for kayaks and other boating equipment, which was to be located in the parking lot.

Balasiuk had been hopeful that project would proceed, and had made plans to expand his business this season, but had to come to the conclusion the dock and kayak launch wouldn’t happen this year. His only option was to create a business plan accordingly, and he has, with plans to expand at Queen’s Royal Park.

The report to councillors Monday indicated it would cost about $65,000-plus for the installation of a small floating dock and staff resources. The report also pointed out that since there could be competing businesses for the launch, “staff would advise council to conduct an open and transparent procurement process that meets the intent of the town’s purchasing bylaw. In order to move forward with the direction from council, capital funding would also be required to install a docking/launch facility in River Beach Park. This would require a funding request from council for approximately $65,000.”

It became clear Monday that proposal is off the table, for now at least, with no money in the budget to fund it.

Instead, Disero says, there is an area along Balls Beach, closer to a parking area on Turntable Way, where a simple launch for kayaks could be made at little cost.

Explaining the historic financial situation, the report says  beginning in 2011, portions of the licensing revenue (meaning the jet boat operation) began supporting the town’s general revenues in lowering the overall tax burden.

“Since 1995,” the report says, “$2,197,986 has been collected in overall licensing revenue, with $286,914 supporting the town’s operating levy since 2011, and further with $2,280,693 being committed to various projects over the 27-year period. Beginning in 2020, additional reserve transfers funded from property taxation revenue were included to support projects in the dock area. For 2020, an additional $300,000 was included in the operating budget and in 2021, this was reduced to $100,000. For 2022, $100,000 remains budgeted to continue to support this reserve into the future. Licensing revenues ceased flowing in 2020, largely due to the pandemic, as cited by the (jet boat) operator.”

There continue to be negotiations with the jet boat operator, says Disero, to resolve that issue, with a contract still in effect.

The balance of that budget is shown as $40,000, but that is expected to be reduced by $39,570 “due to uncollected amounts that are not expected to be collected.”

An appendix to the report received Monday lists the money left over to be about $1,200. And that means, says Disero, there is no money left for the paddlesport launch. 

It is also clear that revenue from the jet boat operation licensing fee, which she believes was intended for dock area improvements, has been used in recent years to offset tax increases, rather than fund dock area improvements.

“It has always been my understanding it was to help make improvements and to implement the master plan in the dock area,” she says. “I don’t know if that was a definite understanding before my time, but I would say it was considered a revenue stream that we would have so we wouldn’t have to add anything to the tax base to make improvements to the dock area.”