MORRISBURG – As beach season is upon us, a proposed user-pay beach fee plan has gone by the wayside before it even got started.
While the plan drew significant feedback from the community including criticism and praise, what shelved the plan before it even had time to take shape was the municipality’s inability to achieve the first step in its plan of action. The first step in the plan proposed in March was to hire part-time beach attendants to collect the fees once implemented.
Unable to hire those attendants, despite an active recruitment effort, director of parks, recreation and facilities David Jansen told council at their last meeting in May that, instead of moving forward with the user pay system this year, efforts and funds set aside for the user fee plan are being redirected to collecting user data and commencing preliminary design work for long-term parking solutions at the Morrisburg and Iroquois beaches and waterfronts.
Given the hiring challenges that prevented the municipality from successfully being able to implement controlled access to the beach for a fee, municipal staff believe the solution is to transition to a user-pay model focused on parking.
“Paid parking will also increase the ability to limit stays and increase turnover common in most public spaces,” reads the report.
The new focus on parking will see an assessment of the current parking infrastructure and needs at both the Morrisburg and Iroquois beaches and waterfronts. Design work to improve parking including layout and expansions will be explored. Since this is only the exploration stage, a parking solution won’t be implemented this year. “Unfortunately, we are unable to move forward with the plan earlier discussed,” said South Dundas mayor Jason Broad.
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