Don’t expect the city to re-open the stairs at Fred Gingell Park anytime soon.
That’s the message that came from council last week during discussion on a letter from a resident angered that people are being denied access to Tsawwsassen Beach and asking that other access points off English Bluff Road be created.
A staff response recommended not re-opening the stairs due to COVID-19 and the inability for people to be able to physically distance on the narrow stairs.
As far as gaining other access points, Mayor George Harvie said it’s an issue that has come up every few years.
Most of the surrounding area is private property but public access is available from the ferry causeway, he said.
Harvie also asked for a memo from staff on the history of the beach access issue as well as options.
In a letter to the Optimist, Bob and Donna Bracken, who helped spearhead the community effort to have the city build the stairs, suggested a “parallel” stairway as a possible solution, allowing people to go up one set and down the other while keeping appropriate physical distancing.
In 2004, Delta approved the construction of the set of stairs leading from the park on English Bluff Road to Tsawwassen Beach below.
Prior to that, an association of beach access advocates access complained that the city was in violation of provincial legislation by not providing a public throughway to the water.
The western edge of Tsawwassen over the previous years had been allowed to develop without providing pathways from the top of the bluff, leaving only a few homeowners private access to the public beach in the area.
Threatened with a lawsuit, the city admitted it never had the authority to waive a statute under the Provincial Land Act requiring access to the water and never got a waiver from the minister of highways.
Council eventually agreed to secure an occupation lease with B.C. Hydro for the right-of-way and spending $400,000 on stairway plan.
About half the cost was to construct the stairs and the use remainder to protect the hydro lines.
