despite years\u2019 worth of complaints <\/a>about its negative impact on the habitat and surrounding community.<\/p>\nCity staff were ordered this week to report back in June with more specific reasons as to why the club may need to be shut down and what opportunities its members have to mitigate outstanding issues.<\/p>\n
The decision was a letdown for advocates who wanted to see it shut down, but welcomed by the club, whose members hired a strategic adviser as part of their effort to get the city to change its mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the committee waits for city staff to report back, the club\u2019s members now have a brief opening to address community concerns, which would include limiting the number of boats and jet skis on the property.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not going to take for granted the opportunity that we have right now,\u201d said Wilson DaSilva, the club\u2019s vice commodore.<\/p>\n
But advocates, including Jason Sills, who started a petition against the club and said it has a history of not addressing public feedback, say they are not convinced.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no way the club is going to honour anything,\u201d he told CBC Toronto.<\/p>\n
Club has attracted complaints for years<\/p>\n
The Toronto Humber Yacht Club, the city\u2019s only boating club located along a river, has been the subject of complaints over its growing number of jet skis and boats posing a risk to the habitat, as well as bad behaviour from members, including speeding, littering and disrespecting others who use the river.<\/p>\n
While the club\u2019s leaders have previously acknowledged some wrongdoing, they have also attributed many of the issues to a public boat launch nearby.<\/p>\n
The decision not to renew the club\u2019s lease was posted at its entrance in January 2026, following an \u201cextensive review\u201d that found \u201ca less intensive land use at this location would better support river valley health, ecological management objectives, and long-term resilience to flooding and erosion,\u201d city staff wrote in a Feb. 23 report provided to the committee. <\/p>\n
WATCH | What initially led the city to shut down the club:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773221528_234_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Why Toronto is shutting down this 70-year-old yacht club<\/p>\n
After nearly 70 years, the city is shutting down a controversial Etobicoke yacht club. Critics say it harmed the environment, but some club members refuse to give up on it. CBC\u2019s Naama Weingarten has more on their fight and what the historic site could become.<\/p>\n
To the dismay of advocates like Sills, who also hoped the city would focus on more than just the environmental impacts, the \u201cextensive review\u201d was not included in the city staff report.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey discounted the bullying, the threats. They discounted the speeding on the water,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Local Coun. Amber Morley previously told CBC the club had a laundry list of issues and was not cooperative with multiple noncompliance orders from the city, which club members denied and said they were always willing to work with the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Behavioural issues arising from the club were not thoroughly discussed during Monday\u2019s meeting, since the club\u2019s closure was triggered by environmental concerns.<\/p>\n
During Monday’s tense, hours-long committee debate about its future, Coun. Michael Thompson criticized city staff for the lack of context about the club\u2019s issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to say to our staff, this is not your finest hour,\u201d he said during the committee meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been very difficult for me to formulate a real constructive opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yacht club wants to cooperate with the city, vice commodore says<\/p>\n
DaSilva told CBC the club wants to cooperate with the city and the community to carve a path forward.<\/p>\n
As part of that, he said the club will remove jet skis from the property, open the yacht club to the community, and prioritize less environmentally invasive watercrafts by expanding kayak and canoe memberships. They will also expand their initiative to clean up the Humber River from two to four times a year and open it up as a volunteer opportunity to the public, he said.<\/p>\n
But Sills said the club has already had plenty of opportunities to work with the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing is going to change because they\u2019re going to tell you anything you want to hear,\u201d he said. \u201cBut as soon as they have that lease, they\u2019re going to completely ignore everything.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In response, DaSilva said anyone is invited to come to the club and make suggestions, which they\u2019ll take seriously.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur commitment to that club and that river and the community concerns is paramount and is fundamentally what this club is going to strive to achieve without delay,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-528783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528783","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=528783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n