Beachfront Development

Beachfront Development

The Kootenays are known for recreation and their thousands of waterfront properties. Before the

1960s, there were not many of them. I was asked to work on a parcel of land that had a very nice

beach and to help the owners figure out what to do with the property.

A helicopter pilot had come down from the North with a little money. He bought the property

and then figured that he did not really want to subdivide it, which would have required the

construction of a public road through the middle of this very nice property. If you are

subdividing a lake or river frontage, there must be a public roadway.

The owner just did not want a road, so I came up with a funny idea. I drew a map of small

parcels for RVs, providing space for thirty or so of them. We drew up a policy document based

on the plan that I prepared, but it was not registered.

The development had nothing to do with land titles, but RV parcels were created with a central

bathhouse area, washroom, and other facilities. RV owners would pay quite a large annual fee,

equivalent to the annual tax on the property. The idea proved quite popular. The owner went into

partnership with another person. They bought an adjacent parcel and did the same thing on it,

virtually doubling the size of the original RV park. At the front of the property, they built a small

restaurant and a store.

The arrangement was not without problems. The RVs generated sewage, which could have been

a health hazard. In other areas, developers had created subdivisions without proper sewage

disposal, much to the medical health officer’s annoyance. But this one worked out fortunately,

and I am pretty happy with what I created.

This project worked very well as a community. They've got a very nice wharf system there that

has docking for all the boats. The project grew to around forty RV sites, with most of the people

coming from Alberta because the Kootenay locals typically have their own properties.

Then an interesting thing happened. One fellow complained bitterly about the annual fee for the

RV site, which was more than a thousand dollars whether he occupied the site fulltime, parked

his trailer on it, or let the site sit empty. This guy only used his site for a short period once a year.

He really made a fuss about it and tried to have the policy changed, but it stood the test of time.

To this day, the policy works well.

When acting as a consultant and advising and creating things, you do not want to create

something with problems, especially if it makes people fight with their neighbour. If you do a

subdivision and with a poor layout, it can create animosity among neighbours. I would feel

responsible for having created a poor layout, agreement, or policy; but in this instance, the policy

was fair.