Mayor queries MLA on replacement of docks following lakeshore flooding
The rebuilding of docks along Okanagan Lake is an opportunity to ensure greater public access along the shoreline, Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran says.
Many docks have been destroyed or badly damaged by lake flooding over the past month, Basran noted at the conclusion of Monday’s city council meeting.
He said the city has no jurisdiction over docks, as the approval and licensing of the structures is the responsibility of the provincial government.
However, Basran said provincial regulations require that retaining walls and docks built by waterfront property owners must not interfere with public access along the shoreline between the highand low-water marks.
Basran said he has already written to Steve Thomson, MLA for Kelowna-Mission and the minister of forests, lands and natural resource operations, for guidance on how the rebuilding of docks will be undertaken.
Some residents have long complained that, despite the provincial regulation, public access is in fact impeded in many locations along the waterfront by imposing docks with No Trespassing signs, fences or retaining walls that jut out too far.
A group called PLAN Kelowna is calling on the government to devote more resources to ensuring that existing docks, and any that are built in the wake of the flooding, conform to regulations requiring public access along the shoreline.
Group members are also planning an event sometime this summer they call Walk the Beach Parade, in which people will attempt to walk from City Park to the outflow of Mission Creek.
The level of Okanagan Lake dropped one centimetre between Sunday and Monday, to 343.181 metres above sea level. That’s still about 70 centimetres, or more than two feet, higher than is normal for late June.