The City of Quinte West is moving forward on replacing the breakwall at Trent Port Marina, a project that could set the city back $7,000,000 in additional debt.
Several parts of the breakwater system are failing or have failed, with the city saying that there has been significant damage and cracking seen throughout the breakwater systems, leading to deterioration of the concrete and polystrene core.
“We are in a lease for 25 years with an option to renew for one additional 25-year term,” Director of Community Services + Community Partnerships for the City of Quinte West, Jaclyn Grimmon, tells council.
“We have been in conversations with the property owner who is certainly understanding and sympathetic to what we’re being faced with, and the significant investment that council is looking to make a decision on, in terms of the replacement of those structures, and are more than willing to work with us on a new term or an extension to the term if that is council’s desire.”
Councillors spoke on having to bite the bullet when it came to the project with some acknowledging how unpopular the marina is among the public.
Councillor Zack Card said the city could be paying $100,000 a day in fines to the Ministry of Environment if council didn’t act on replacing the breakwall.
“We could spend $6 million on ministry fines and still have to replace the wall at the end,” Card said.
Card said he would like to see other options presented to try and maximize what they have in the lease because the status quo wasn’t enough.
“What I would like to see is two things, I would like to see a staff report to look at options for developing the waterfront further. We can do public/private partnerships, what the city can do on its own to further see waterfront development and supporting development around the marina,” Card said.
“The second thing is I would like a full-scale, in-depth look at the business plan included in the Parks and Rec Master Plan RFQ that’s going to go out so that we can get some different options on community partnerships, possibly just selling it straight out to a public partner, public/private partnerships. It’s many different ownership and operations management options that we have. I think we should look at them all.”
On the other side, Councillor Egerton Boyce said the city should be looking at taking the loss or look at somebody else to invest in it.
“I learned a long time ago as a councillor you never build property on stuff you don’t own,” Boyce tells council.
“I mean we’re in a lease now on this property. We don’t own it. In all good consciousness, I cannot spend $7 million on property that the city doesn’t own even if they extended the lease for another 20 years.”
Boyce also shot down the tourism dollars argument stating that he believed the city would make the exact same amount of money if the marina was private compared to public.
In a recorded vote on a motion to approve the project while also requesting a business plan from the consultant and a request for a report from staff regarding waterfront development options, council voted in favour by a vote of 11-2.
Yes votes came from Jim Alyea, Duncan Armstrong, Egerton Boyce, Zack Card, Sally Freeman, Michael Kotsovos, David McCue, David O’Neil, Lynda Reid, Karen Sharpe, Shelley Stedall and Mayor Jim Harrison.
No votes came from councillors Egerton Boyce and Don Kuntze.
