{"id":36136,"date":"2025-07-31T05:18:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T05:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/36136\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T05:18:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T05:18:10","slug":"saint-andrews-town-council-votes-for-market-wharf-refurbishment-despite-public-pushback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/36136\/","title":{"rendered":"Saint Andrews town council votes for Market Wharf refurbishment despite public pushback"},"content":{"rendered":"

The meeting room at the W. C. O’Neill\u00a0Arena was over capacity on Tuesday night as\u00a0Saint Andrews town council decided the fate of the Market Wharf refurbishment.<\/p>\n

In a six-to-one vote, the project will go out to tender, with construction to start as soon as possible. The goal is to finish before next year’s tourist season.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0vote came after a two-month coastal study from engineering firm Gemtec\u00a0concluded the proposed infill design “has minimal impact on flow patterns” and “erosion has been mitigated in the design.”<\/p>\n

The study was commissioned because some residents were concerned about environmental impacts from the proposed design.<\/p>\n

The entire process has attracted a lot of interest and feedback from the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We had to turn people away,” said Mayor Kate Akagi. “Our bylaw enforcement officer was there to keep people from filling the room.”<\/p>\n

With a line of residents crowding around the door, Akagi said it wasn’t\u00a0typical of most council meetings, which see one or two residents in attendance.<\/p>\n

\"AThe Saint Andrews town council chamber was at capacity at Tuesday night’s meeting to decide the fate of the wharf refurbishment. (Town of Saint Andrews)<\/p>\n

“As we already stated before we went through with … Gemtec, if there was little movement and influx, then we would go forward with the tendering,” said Akagi. “And that’s what we’ve done.”<\/p>\n

The study cost the town $25,000.<\/p>\n

“I’m not a scientist,” said Akagi. “I have to go by what they say because we paid the money.”<\/p>\n

After seven years of working on the project,\u00a0council argued\u00a0they’ve had enough consultation\u00a0and need to get the project started\u00a0before funding runs out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Residents like Tom Sparling did\u00a0not agree.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Councillors spar over wharf consultation timeline:\"\"<\/p>\n

After lengthy debate, Saint Andrews moves ahead with wharf revitalization<\/p>\n

After almost two hours of debate, Saint Andrews town council voted 6-1 to continue with the tender process for a major wharf revitalization project. <\/p>\n

“It’s never too late to do the right thing,” said Sparling. “Lots of projects go through a process and don’t get built.”<\/p>\n

Sparling was one of many residents who participated in the initial hearings for the wharf refurbishment. He lives on Water Street, down the coast from the wharf.<\/p>\n

“It’s going to be horrific in terms of what it does visually,” said Sparling. “I think it’s going to be a scar on the face of a very historic town.”<\/p>\n

\"AResidents like Tom Sparling are concerned about the impacts of the project, including the visual change to the historic harbour. (Michael Heenan\/CBC)<\/p>\n

When Sparling was asked if he thinks there are any positives with moving forward with the wharf project, he simply said, “No.”<\/p>\n

Resident Steve Saunders agrees.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been going out on the wharf since I was little,” said Saunders. “This thing that the town is proposing is an eyesore for what people come to Saint Andrews to see.”<\/p>\n

Saunders, who has a background in computational fluid dynamic engineering, made a peer review presentation of the study at the meeting.<\/p>\n

\"ASteve Saunders presents his peer review on the Gemtec study at Tuesday’s meeting of town council in Saint Andrews. (Town of Saint Andrews)<\/p>\n

“What [Gemtec]\u00a0was asked to do by the town was not rigorous enough from an environmental standpoint,” said Saunders. “Their assessment of sediment transport was insufficient, they only took four samples.”<\/p>\n

Gemtec responded to CBC News in a statement and said “adjacent landowners should not be concerned about erosion from this structure.”<\/p>\n

Saunders also presented to the council back in 2023 and pointed out that infill similar to the proposed design is illegal in many states in the United States.<\/p>\n

However, he ran into a roadblock at Tuesday’s meeting.<\/p>\n

“I’d like to amend the agenda,” said Coun. Kurt Gumushel at Tuesday’s meeting to “skip tonight’s presentation and move to the business at hand.”<\/p>\n

Gumushel argued\u00a0that Section 21.3 of the Local Governance Act states that without two-thirds of council agreeing, they cannot have a presentation twice on the same topic.<\/p>\n

They went to a vote\u00a0and allowed Saunders to present.<\/p>\n

“I think maybe they were afraid of what I had to say,” said Saunders.<\/p>\n

Council will meet in August to discuss the tendering of the project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The meeting room at the W. C. O’Neill\u00a0Arena was over capacity on Tuesday night as\u00a0Saint Andrews town council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-36136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}