Tom Strifler says he knew about the city-claimed right-of-way off his backyard when he and his wife built their home on Passingham Drive about two years ago.
A rusted steel stairway leading down the hill to Lake Huron was redone in stone, but they made sure to keep their adjoining patio back from where it might encroach on public property, said Strifler.
Some of his neighbors can’t say the same.
“There’s a number of stairs and decks that maybe do extend over if I look down the shoreline,” the 66-year-old said.
A few decks of varying ages and a boat house jut into the area where Old Lakeshore Road once ran before it was washed away decades ago, said Cary Clifford, who lives at Passingham’s opposite end.
Rocks there have been piled in as part of emergency repairs in recent years to keep the shoreline from eroding further when the aged steel wall failed, he said.
While questions remain about exact costs and privacy, city council recently reaffirmed its ownership of the right-of-way in a 7-2 vote and plans to install a path to make it publicly accessible.
Details and deliberation, including weighing the opinion of neighbours, is expected in the coming months.
A makeshift path already leads from Mike Weir Park behind Clifford’s property.
People use it, but only go so far before they’re climbing around his neighbours’ decks, said Clifford.
“I’d just like to see it resolved,” Clifford said about the ownership issue he said has recurred at various points over the decades.
The rocks from emergency repairs are a safety hazard that needs to be addressed, he said.
His own deck might encroach slightly into the right-of-way, said the 65-year-old, who’s lived at the property since 1998.
“People have been coming through here for 20-plus years,” he said.
Other walkers, Strifler said, move to Passingham from the lakeside pathway that stretches from Bright’s Grove to the east. They then cut south to the Howard Watson Nature Trail.
Building a formal pathway in line with the washed-away roadway would just add a few more blocks of lakefront to their course, Strifler said.
“I’m just wondering about the value of spending … well, we know it’ll be more than $7 million,” he said about the high-level city estimate to reclaim the right-of-way for public access. “I don’t think it’s a very good investment.”
Strifler predicted maintenance would also prove expensive and questioned the lakeside walkway’s tourism appeal.
A council vote in 2006 to reaffirm ownership of the approximately 750-metre span – the area north of Passingham Drive is about half that distance – was never followed through, city records say, but public consultation in 2016 was largely in favor of reinstating public access , though neighbors were mostly opposed.
Nothing much has changed, with just three of the 18 property owners who responded to a recent city survey saying they’re in favor of shoreline upgrades and installing a path.
Nine said they want ownership transferred, three contend they own the property already after decades of city neglect, two want the city to upgrade shoreline protection without allowing public access and one said they’re open to a land transfer or city upgrades.
There is the risk of a legal battle in reaffirming ownership, staff have said. Additionally, more expensive emergency repairs loom if the city doesn’t act soon.
But if there is no public access to this shorefront, the city should not be investing in protection works along this stretch, Coun. Mike Stark contended.
“If we do not take back that land and claim it as our own, as per this recommendation, we should not be spending one dime of taxpayer money,” he said in a recent council meeting.
Mayor Mike Bradley added the city does not invest in people’s private property and doing so would be “mind-boggling.”
count. Margaret Bird said the city has a duty to invest in the shoreline to preserve the properties there that pay high taxes.
She and Coun. David Boushy voted against reaffirming ownership. Council, though, unanimously approved a motion from Coun. Terry Burrell for a cost-benefit analysis.
Some of the land the city owns may in fact be under water, the councilor noted.
City staff have said repair work could start in the area in the next two years, but the question of whether to assert ownership or sell the land needs to be settled first.
Strifler said he’s not surprised by council’s recent decision.
“It sounds attractive, (but) I don’t know if it’s adding the value they think it’s going to add,” he said.
Some homes are very close to the waterfront, so the grade of a walkway needs to be lower than people’s backyards, he said.
Otherwise “people will be literally reaching over and grabbing a hamburger off the barbecue,” he said.
It’s also been acknowledged many of the property owners also own land north of the right-of-the-way, complicating further how to manage the build.
Strifler said he hopes landowners’ concerns are taken into account, “so that it’s attractive and useful for everyone, including those landowners.”