Summer is gone, but the sun is yet to set on Tiny residents' beach woes.
Another related issue was brought up by Coun. Gibb Wishart at a recent committee of the whole meeting.
"Plan 672 Block B is a piece of beach north of Balm Beach," he said. "It's bordered by private property. And to my understanding, there are no public access paths that take you to that beach. Every path there is is on private property."
Adjacent to Block B is another block that the township owns, said Wishart.
"When the private landowners call on the police to say 'we've got somebody who is being obnoxious who's on our property, cursing, boozing, defecating, and letting dogs run along, the police comes and isn't able to decide (boundaries of ) the private and municipal property," he said, adding the residents say police have told them they need the signage and demarcation to be absolutely cut and dried.
"These people are stuck," said Wishart. "They're stuck with truly nasty people who come and swear and start fist fights. People have been charged by the police but they can't kick them off because they're not exactly sure where things begin and end. I suppose there are a bunch of answers to this situation. The township could sell what they have back to private property owners and then it's all private and the police can kick people off."
He said he wasn't sure what was the point of the municipality owning property in the area and not allowing the public to access it.
"I want an end to this desperately," said Wishart. "I get enough phone calls and they're always long. We need to do something and we need to do it soon."
Interim CAO Tim Leitch said he was aware of the situation, but added that it wouldn't fall under the township's delineation plans.
"We've advised the owners in that area of that block (it looks like a multiple ownership) to have their property delineated with signage so the OPP can enforce any trespassing," he said. "The balance of that property toward the waterfront, the township doesn't have a direct interest in that at this point. It is not municipal property."
Residents putting up posts to delineate Block B is a very good first step, said Leitch, who's also director of public works.
"There are no public access paths that are in our inventory of land," he added. "We did purchase the block just north of that a couple years ago, but this is to the south of that."
Coun. Tony Mintoff said he believed it was a much more complicated situation than could be solved with signage.
"I think the fact of it is that ghost lots are involved in this area," he said. "(This) sets up expectations by the backlot owners that the ghost lot portion is accessible to the public and was always intended to be accessible to the public dating back to the 1800s."
Mintoff said it looked like one of the nearby shoreline residential property owners was allowing members of the public to use their property to allow access to the nearby beach.
"It's not necessarily that they're trespassing on private property to get there, some of them are they're doing it with the permission of one of the adjacent property owners," he noted. "We need a much more fulsome analysis before we decide what is the appropriate level of action to take."
Staff was directed to convene a meeting with all involved parties to discuss options.
