By Cecilia Nasmith
The public-consultation process has narrowed down favoured options for the east pier, and Cobourg Councillor Emily Chorley put them in a motion at this week's committee-of-the-whole meeting.
Chorley's motion called for the procurement of engineering and other professional services to develop drawings, costs and tender documents for the east-pier option that would open up the site to pedestrian and limited light-vehicle use.
The councillor also called for this configuration to have a number of what she termed essential enhancements – seating and lookouts, a pedestrian walkway, and electrical upgrades and pedestrian lighting.
She also classified a number of possible enhancements as optional, to be considered and costed separately – charter boat and deep-water docking, food concessions, accessibility enhancements to the beach, pedestrian access to the lighthouse, and perimeter railings.
Councillor Nicole Beatty was surprised Chorley saw accessibility enhancements as optional, asking that it be reclassified as essential. Chorley agreed that this would be a good idea.
Mayor John Henderson made the same request for perimeter railing. Given the distance between the pier's surface and the water, he said, it should not be optional. Chorley agreed this too could be reclassified as essential.
Henderson returned to the basic question of the configuration of the pier, playing devil's advocate to ask whether the option of pedestrian and limited light- and heavy-vehicle use might be preferable. Otherwise, he wondered, how would it support a crane to lift out or otherwise assist boats?
Henderson also pointed out that council has no way of knowing what future generations of users would want for the pier – maybe they'd like to see the midway return to that location on Canada Day or perhaps they might want to see a restaurant open in this prime location.
“We are not building a pier for our term, and certainly not for the next 30 years,” he said.
“What would the 10th council from now say about wanting a restaurant? We would need a pier to hold that kind of structure.”
Still, he acknowledged the financial realities. While council may speculate what may happen a century from now, they can only afford what is feasible now – and the difference could be as much as $3-million.
“I believe what is recommended is both attainable and realistic,” Henderson stated.
Director of community services Dean Hustwick acknowledged that cranes lifting out boats are able to operate in an increasingly small footprint at the waterfront. But even going for the heavy-reinforcement option would not prevent some degree of settling over many years.
Councillor Brian Darling, a retired firefighter, said firefighting vehicles are becoming lighter and more compact over time, and expressed confidence in the light-vehicle option.
