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district West Vancouver The council was accused of entering into a deal with the developer to block public access to parts of the beach.
The waterfront property at 3000 Park Lane has been listed for sale for just under $7 million and is currently listed as “Sold – Pending.”
Residents said the “pending” condition was that the potential buyer have the city close a path leading to that part of the beach to the public.
Next to the trail is open space owned by the District of West Vancouver that was originally set aside for road construction.
Christopher Molineux has lived in the area since 2011.
“As far as I know, this passage has been in existence for more than 100 years,” he said. “I’ve heard that there are documents showing it existed as early as 1918, and it provided a relatively convenient access point for community residents without having to climb too many stairs.”
Molynix said access to the beach is one of the neighborhood’s defining features.
“Because it’s now threatened, I’m suddenly going through these memories in detail,” he added.
The land went on sale about a year ago, marketed as “your own beachfront” with “unobstructed southwestern ocean views where you can build the luxury home of your dreams.”
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West Vancouver Mayor Mark Sager told Global News the district felt the $5 million offer was too low.
“The land is quite narrow so the advice we received from staff was that we should close the whole road and sell it in larger lots, which did attract higher offers,” he said.
Sager wanted to make it clear that the public has not lost its right to access the beach.
Although this road is about to be closed, there are two other roads a few hundred meters on either side of it.
Residents say the trail is the most popular and easiest to use.
Molynix said over the years they have watched fireworks at the beach, had family picnics, kayaked and spent time with family and friends.
He said the next flight of stairs wasn’t that far, but there were still a lot of stairs.
The bigger problem, he said, is that West Vancouver’s mayor and city council appear to be allowing someone to condition a sale on the purchase of public beach access or any public facility.
Mr Molynix said residents were assured that public beach access would remain when the Park Lane homes were sold.
“From what I understand, (the mayor and council) got a call from a potential buyer who said ‘I’ve got some money, if you sell the beach access and I get the property, you can get this extra money,'” he said. “The council said ‘That sounds good to us. If you have the money, we’re willing to listen and sell the beach access,’ so they set up a meeting for that.”
Molineux said the property was listed as “sold – pending sale” hours after the July 22 meeting to discuss the issue.
Sager said the proceeds from the sale would be used to buy the last remaining waterfront house in Ambleside, while selling the cul-de-sac would save residents a tax increase.
“To raise that money, we’d have to raise taxes by about 2 percent,” he said.
Molyneux said he knows money is important, but there are things that transcend money, especially in a community like West Vancouver.
He added that the message to residents and visitors is that “when you see a sign in West Vancouver that says ‘Beach Access,’ you can see ‘For Sale’ written underneath in invisible ink. That’s the message and that’s selling out the character of the community, it really is.”
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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