Cottagers can build erosion barrier

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/03/2011 (5397 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IT turns out the municipality can’t stop some Victoria Beach cottagers from building a rock barrier to protect their properties.

That’s because Lake Winnipeg has stripped away so much shoreline, all that’s left is the cottage owners’ own property.

Reeve Tom Farrell, of the RM of Victoria Beach, and Chief Administrative Officer Raymond Moreau told a crowd of about 50 people packed into the municipality’s small meeting room in Winnipeg that this is what a legal opinion sought by council told the councillors on Tuesday shortly before the public meeting.

“They have to do the protection work on their land,” Farrell said after the meeting. “As long as it addresses private property, it’s a go.

“For (these cottagers) it is academic — they are looking at the potential of losing their property if they do nothing.”

But Moreau said the legal opinion also says if anyone wanted to do any shoreline-erosion work on any beachfront public land that is left in front of Sunset Boulevard, it would be the provincial government — and not the municipality — that would have to make a decision about whether to let it go ahead.

Last month, a cease-and-desist order was issued by the municipality against some lakefront cottagers on Victoria Beach’s Arthur Beach, about seven hours after trucks began dumping boulders in front of the cottages.

The barrier work, called a revetment, involves placing the rock to protect the shoreline cliffs from further erosion.

This project is in a different area of the beach from another recently debated one at King Edward Beach. That project has been put on hold for a year with the property owners looking at installing large, temporary sandbags there.

The meeting was told that one affected cottager — Jim Conly — was probably only two to three metres away from having the cliff at his cottage door.

But several cottagers have expressed opposition to the work because of fears it will destroy the famed beach.

Conly wouldn’t comment after the meeting.

But earlier, Conly told the municipal council all he wants to do is protect the cottage that has been in his family for decades.

“Our cottage is almost 100 years old and it is set in concrete — it can’t be moved,” Conly said.

“We need to do something next week or we’ll be gone in the next storm… We should not be denied the right to protect our property.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca