IN PROTEST
Surfers fear a coastal redevelopment will destroy a favourite spot,
Jeff Green has been surfing the same spot by Bluffer’s Park Beach in Scarborough for the past 30 years.
On oceans, surfers can rely on tides to generate waves, but lake surfers such as Green — yes, you can surf on Lake Ontario — depend on wind and shore layouts to create surf. And the stretch between the Bluffer’s Park Beach and the nearby marina happens to be the perfect spot to create powerful, oceanlike waves when the wind blows from the southwest.
“Honestly, my best memories over the 30 years of surfing are at the point,” Green said. “The wave wraps in such a way that it’s unbelievable. It’s a pure ocean wave.
“This spot is a spot that every single person in the community surfs or is intrigued by . . . It’s magical.”
Green and other Toronto surfers are worried the magic may not last much longer if a Scarborough shoreline revitalization project by Toronto and Region Conservation (TRCA) moves forward as planned.
The TRCA’s proposed Scarborough Waterfront Project, now three years in the making, is aiming to revamp about 11 kilometres of Scarborough’s shoreline. The aim is to make the area safer and more accessible to the public while preventing the erosion of the Scarborough Bluffs and preserving wildlife habitats.
The project is split into three portions, but it’s the TRCA’s plan for the West Segment, which includes Bluffer’s Park Beach and surrounding areas, that’s raising concern among surfers.
According to the TRCA’s website, the plan for the West Segment includes expanding the length of the beach about 60 metres into Lake Ontario between Bluffer’s Park and Meadowcliffe and building a stone revetment, a large, roughly peanutshaped collection of rocks, to help protect the headland.
The proposal will not only increase the amount of park space for the public to enjoy, but also keep debris out of the marina and reduce the amount of dredging, according to the TRCA. For the surfers, the problem is the revetment is set to go right where the wave breaks, near the end of a spit of land just west of the beach and next to the marina.
“It’s putting a node literally right in the middle of the best surf spot in the lake,” another surfer, Nadia Baer, said. “This happens to be a spot that creates a perfect wave . . . They’re going to build right in the middle of that and stop that wave.”
Although the proposed plans have been public since last year, Baer and Green said they didn’t think, until recently, that the TRCA would actually be moving forward with the option that included the revetment.
They both helped organize a “paddleout” event at the location Wednesday, where a few dozen surfers took to the water to raise awareness about the issue.
Baer said she’s also been in touch with the TRCA and city councillors in an effort to save the wave, but was told it’s “too late” to change the plans.
But Baer said she still hopes a compromise can be reached. She said the surfing community in Toronto has “exploded” in the past three years and losing the spot would not only be a blow to seasoned surfers, but people trying to get into the sport.
However, TRCA’s head of watershed programs, Nancy Gaffney, said the proposed West Segment design was rolled out last June, and, following meetings with the public and agencies such as the Ministry of Natural Resources, was refined and “locked down” back in February. Although the TRCA was aware surfers used the area around Bluffer’s Park, it didn’t know about the wave break, Gaffney said, and surfers didn’t approach the TRCA until April of this year.
The TRCA is open to working with the surfers to find a solution, Gaffney said, but simply removing the node from the plans is not an option.
“If they’re willing to accept something besides ‘remove the node altogether,’ we’re absolutely open to a conversation,” she said. “We have to do detailed design which will further detail out what that node will look like, so would there be room for some changes? Absolutely, but again, they’re suggesting the whole node needs to go. That’s not a detailed design discussion.”