DEATH OF A PARK

Taken July 29, 2016 - 2:00 p.m. - one of the main parking areas
for the Innisfil Beach Cruisers weekly event

Four years ago, attracted to Lake Simcoe’s shorelines and the serenity of Innisfil Beach Park, I moved to Innisfil from the GTA. After settling here, I frequently went to Innisfil Beach Park to walk, and enjoy its glorious tranquility. But things changed quickly and my enjoyment of the park didn’t last long. I believe that sometime around 2014, Innisfil Town Council issued a mandate to make this beautiful park the “hub” of Innisfil’s community.

That’s about the time The Innisfil Beach Cruisers car club (a private interest group) began using the park for their weekly meetings, in their current location. Beginning in May, every Thursday night for 20+ weeks, club members drive numerous vehicles (sometimes more than 125) onto a path intended for pedestrians and bicyclists.   After driving up the walkway, club members park their vehicles along the turf areas, abutting the path. When the club activity is finished, they drive back down the pedestrian path.  Traffic jams are the norm, since all the vehicles are leaving at the same time.

Concerned that this irregular park usage seems to be creating a lot of problems, I met with Jason Inwood, the Town’s Operations Manager, in early August 2016.  The meeting wasted my time as most of my concerns remain unaddressed. Still unresolved are questions around the health, safety and quiet enjoyment of the park for average park users and the pollution of our lake and park grounds.  There are increased costs to Innisfil taxpayers for parkland repair and maintenance and bylaw enforcement.  There is no clarity as to how the Town benefits from this particular use of the park. 

Jason Inwood had asked for a list of my concerns, so that he could be prepared for our meeting when he returned from his vacation.  It was e-mailed to him in a timely fashion but he wasn’t prepared at all.  Coincidentally, he just didn’t have time to review my questions and to this day, about 8 weeks later, has not answered most of them.  So many of the questions relate to the health and safety of the people who use the park and to the pollution of our lake and exactly just how the Town is benefitting by allowing our park to be used this way.  

Who is paying to remediate the turf areas after this private interest group is done with it?  There’s hardly any grass left in that whole area where the vehicles are allowed to park.  Has remediation ever been done? 

The negative effects of the club’s activities at their current location within Innisfil Beach Park are apparent: Vulnerable park users (the elderly, children, people using assistive devices, etc.) are inconvenienced and potentially endangered by vehicles encroaching into areas which are neither designed nor intended for them;

1)  Some club members impatiently rev their engines and/or sound their horns to intimidate pedestrians to clear the walking path as they enter and drive along it;

2)  Many club members park near the picnic pavilion, arranging vehicles right under the noses of the people trying to enjoy their meals;

People trying to enjoy their picnics 

                               


3.  Many of the club’s “vintage” vehicles spew smelly emissions and drip fluids onto the pedestrian path and turf areas, spoiling the quiet enjoyment of the park for picnic goers and other users, and polluting the ground;

4.  The traffic compacts and erodes the turf, and the grass is damaged and disappearing;Ground compaction from the vehicles parking on it damages nearby tree roots, adversely affects soil health and is conducive to soil erosion and polluted water run-off;

5.  Ground compaction from the vehicles parking on it damages nearby tree roots, adversely affects soil health and is conducive to soil erosion and polluted water run-off;

The picnickers were there first

                                                       

Notice the oil stains the geese have to walk through on their way to the lake?

             

According to the dictionary, a park is defined as: 

1. An area of land set aside for public use, as:   A piece of land with few or no buildings within or adjoining a 
town, maintained for recreational and ornamental purposes. 

In my world, that does not mean allowing 125+ vehicles to drive down a WALKING PATH every week, for 20+ weeks. 

A park IS NOT supposed to be used to trample on the rights of pedestrians, by allowing over ONE HUNDRED vehicles to be driven on it.  A few weeks ago, I was walking my dog at the park (during the private interest group’s event).  Being a dog, she has to stop many times to check things out.  I was on the path, getting close to the boat launch area, when a car, which I could clearly hear coming a mile away because of its noisy muffler system, drove up behind me on the walking path.  The driver HONKED his horn at me.  I’m assuming he wanted me to get off the WALKING PATH so he could drive further up to park his vehicle.  I spoke to the event’s organizer, Mr. Rick Winson, who seemed petulant when I told him I felt it was rude for that driver to blow his horn at me.  Pedestrians have the right of way.  Mr. Winson defended the driver by saying he was just “warning me that he was driving up behind me.”  I ask you – WHY IN THE HELL SHOULD ANY VEHICLE IN A PRIVATE INTEREST GROUP be DRIVING on a PEDESTRIAN PATHWAY in the first place, so that blowing its horn at a PEDESTRIAN IS EVEN NECESSARY? There is only ONE answer to the above – IT SHOULD NOT.

By-the-by, Mr. Winson just happens to have been on some committees with The Town’s Operations Supervisor, Nathan Robinson.  Let’s talk favouritism.  

There are many images and videos of this event, including a couple of videos which show someone using a mobility scooter, who has to get off the pedestrian path to let the vehicles go by. 

Why does this private interest group insist on holding this event on the lakeside, which necessitates driving over 125+ vehicles down a pedestrian path?  According to Nathan Robinson (Operations Department), it’s because Mr. Winson, the car club’s president and organizer, likes the lake view.

And so this private interest group’s 20+ weekly event was allowed to relocate (they used to hold the event near the tennis courts), jeopardizing the vulnerable and ruining the peace and quiet enjoyment for other park users, not to mention the ecological impact on the fragile park environment.

Signs at beginning of WALKING path

The Town Maketh The Rules
The Town Breaketh The Rules

I suggested, that since the resident’s parking lot has been changed to parking lot ‘D’, the parking lot by the snack bar (B) could now be used to hold the event.  It has all the amenities which I’m assuming the Town deems necessary to hold such an event; adequate parking and washroom facilities.  Oh and most importantly of all, according to Nathan Robinson, the view of the lake, that club organizer Mr. Winson demands. 

Parking Lot ‘B’ is ideal.  But, according to the Operations Manager, Jason Inwood, “It’s safer to drive a lot of vehicles down the path than to park in a parking lot.”  How does that even make sense?

A park is for walking, playing, picnicking, swimming, all of which we should be able to do knowing we are safe there and our health is not being compromised, along with health of our park.

   

 This is supposed to be our park, NOT a parking lot!

I find it disgraceful that a special interest group can usurp many other park user’s rights and safety, increase the taxpayer's burden, damage fragile parkland and pollute our precious watershed. The Town of Innisfil lacks the infrastructure and by-law enforcement to turn 68 acres of waterfront into The Hub of our community.

If members of the Innisfil Beach Cruisers truly respect the park as they keep stating, then how is it that they don’t realize what they are doing to our once beautiful park?  There are at least two other much more appropriate locations within the park in which they can hold their event.

Call Town Hall and voice your opinion (705-436-3710) or use the online form to express your concerns - http://www.innisfil.ca/i-want/contact-town-general-concern. According to Jason Inwood, a case file will be opened to address your concerns and staff will follow up with appropriate information.  

In the meantime, our beautiful park is dying.

Used to be a grassy area.  Now used as a parking lot for the Innisfil Beach Cruisers weekly event

Used to be a grassy area.  Now used as a parking lot for the Innisfil Beach Cruisers weekly event and a charcoal dump for lazy beach goers.