Lake foreshore belongs to public
Public passage on a long stretch of Kelowna’s lakeshore is improperly blocked at more than half the waterfront properties, organizers of a Sunday beachfront rally said.
Fences, landscaping boulders and improperly built docks dot the foreshore and not enough is being done to remove the obstacles, says Al Janusas of Pandosy Lakeshore Active Neighborhoods (PLAN) Kelowna.
“I’d estimate between 60 and 70 per cent of the properties between City Park and Mission Creek have blockages of one sort or another,” Janusas said.
“Anything from not having the required stairs on docks, so people can climb up and over them, to walls and fencing extending into the lake,” he said.
About 100 people joined PLAN Kelowna’s second annual Walk the Beach rally, an event designed to highlight what organizers say is the needless difficulty people experience while trying to stroll the public foreshore between the high- and low-water marks of Okanagan Lake.
The high water level is not marked and beach-goers may not be sure of the location of the strip of public land, said Brenda Bachmann, another PLAN Kelowna director.
But since the lake is currently well below its high water mark, usually reached in the lake spring, Bachman said there's a simple way people can tell if they’re on public land: “If you’ve got one foot near the water as you walk along the beach, you're on public property,” Bachmann said.
Sheila Saunders, one of the walk participants, said she’s wondered for years why so little seems to be done by the government to clear away the beaches of improperly placed obstacles.
“I know waterfront property owners pay a lot of of taxes because their land is so valuable,” Saunders said.
“But I’d hate to think that has anything to do with what seems to be some real foot-dragging, if you’ll pardon the pun, by the government on this issue.”
Janusas said the government has been investigating for three years what appears to be a straightforward case of a waterfront property owner's fence encroaching on public land.
“This particular fence seems to go out at least 30 feet further than it should,” Janusas said. “The fence either is or is not on public land. How can it possibly take three years to investigate that?”
Participation in Sunday’s event was about half of last year’s inaugural beach walk. But Janusas noted the weather last year was much nicer for the walk, and this year's event coincided with Ribfest in City Park, which made parking a challenge.
“I don't think there's declining interest in this issue at all,” he said. “If anything, I expect and hope it will become an issue in this fall’s civic election.”