Wilkins Park beach will be temporarily closed this year, Barrie councillors decided Monday night, formally de-listed as a public beach and its creek fenced off.
“We had all the predictable problems with people using a sandy split at the end of a creek as a public beach,” Mayor Jeff Lehman said. “It’s a beautiful, natural area of our city. It’s seen a lot of traffic from residents and then last summer an extreme amount of traffic from non-residents, and it was simply not designed for that. That’s not sustainable.”
The shoreline and creek area at Wilkins Park will be closed to the public this year.
“The closure will not affect the trail or Wilkins Park and gazebo on the top of the hill,” said Dave Friary, the city’s director of operations. “The access to the water will be closed, as it will be a construction site in 2021 to allow for shoreline remediation.”
Fences would be installed along Hewitt’s Creek at vulnerable access points, and from the bridge over the creek to the pump station.
“Fencing along the waterfront would be temporary. The fencing along the creek would be permanent; nothing fancy, just wooden posts and a couple of planks, just to delineate between the pathway and the creek itself,” Friary said, mentioning there would also be signs to keep people away.
Coun. Sergio Morales said the measures might be going too far.
“I understand that last summer was very unique, about the overcrowding and people from Barrie, but also outside Barrie, not following stay-at-home orders or stay in your region or social distancing… but I’m a little bit hesitant to formally do that (close the beach). It seems a little (exclusionary), protectionist and a little bit populist,” he said.
“We also want to do right by our residents and our land," Morales added. "By that I mean erosion and protecting it for future generations.”
Coun. Gary Harvey agreed.
“I think it’s important that we do protect our beaches for our residents,” he said. “All too often I hear, especially last year, where people were getting very dismayed and annoyed that they couldn’t even get to our own beaches because it was just jam-packed.
"It’s quite evident this beach is suffering some significant erosion and we need to repair this sooner than later," Harvey added.
Coun. Mike McCann also said the beach at Wilkins Park has some unique challenges.
“There are some residents — because it’s one the highest property taxed areas in Barrie — (who) believe that they should have maybe some special consideration, right. That’s not how I feel,” he said. “I feel that the city as a whole, every beach is accessible.
“The frustrating part is that because many non-Barrie residents were coming to the beach and really not respecting the beach, like the local residents. That’s the issue I had," McCann added.
Coun. Jim Harris said crowded beaches now could be a sign of things to come.
“It’s important to recognize that some of these issues were emerging,” he said. “There’s silver linings to some things. COVID showed us what the volumes would be in a much bigger city, which we are soon to be.
“So it did give us a little bit of a glimpse to the future,” Harris added. “We need to start planning for how much volume we’ll have at these beaches.”
The shoreline and creek area were environmentally damaged by increased human use in the summer of 2020, as part of a significant increase in the city’s waterfront use due to changes in people’s outdoor activities, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and provincial and local health regulations and restrictions.
According to city staff, approximately 75 to 100 people were observed at Wilkins Park and the small surrounding area during at least one period last summer. Physical distancing protocols suggest there should be a capacity of less than 50 people.
The Wilkins Park shoreline contains a smaller beach along Kempenfelt Bay, located at the southeast end of Barrie’s waterfront, near the bottom of Crimson Ridge Road. It contains the end of Hewitt’s Creek, a designated cold-water fishery which empties into the bay.
Concerns have also been raised that wading and fishing in the creek is impacting the habitat of the cold-water fishery, and that excessive human use has led to the deterioration of the vegetation in the beach and the immediate forested area.
There have also been complaints that beach-goers had been using nearby wooded areas as washrooms, which is more prevalent in beach areas without washroom facilities, such as Wilkins Park. Complaints were also received about an increase in parking within residential neighbourhoods adjacent to the waterfront.
McCann has asked for “direct and deliberate” parking signs in the Wilkins Park beach area.
“Just because we have signs that say we will tow your vehicle away doesn’t mean we have to tow it away,” he said.
There have been regeneration efforts previously taken there by the city, but continued overuse of the shoreline area of Wilkins Park has reversed these efforts.
As Barrie’s population continues to grow, the environmental degradation of Wilkins beach shoreline will only intensify, according to city staff.
Wilkins Park and its beach are located within the regulated limit of the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Area and zoned environmental protection.
City council will consider final approval of the motion to temporarily close Wilkins Park beach, and de-list it, at its April 12 meeting.
