Kelvin Grove Officially Off Limits

[paddledive]

Ms Akerhielm,

How does The Village of Lions Bay plan to regulate the "offensive" activity of scuba diving where there is no water (above the high tide line)?

This is a serious very serious matter. It is about time that the Mayor and Councilors of The Village of Lions Bay get a solid grasp on the situation that they have created for themselves by creating unlawful bylaws. The Village of Lions Bay and Council members are imminently about to be sued. This is serious!

Read the entire Community Charter before you pass any further bylaws. Immediately amend the current bylaws to be in compliance with the entire Community Charter.

1) No, the municipality may NOT discriminate against "non-residents" in anyway including parking and specific activities (scuba diving) in public areas. This right is protected throughout all of Canada by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms along with the Human Rights Act. The municipality may NOT ignore this. You will get sued. No joke.

2) No, the foreshore is NOT Provincial. It is Federal.

3) Yes, the municipality may create it's own bylaws as long as they are in full compliance with the entire Community Charter. There is a lot attached here. Read into it.

4) Yes, the municipality may regulate any activity on public property, highways, parking etc as long as it is inclusive of EVERYONE.

5) No, the municipality may NOT create a bylaw that prohibits non-residents from parking at a Park or a specific activity within a public area . That's called "discrimination" which is typically frowned upon by the Canadian populace and will inevitably land you a class-action lawsuit.

6) No, the municipality may NOT regulate the foreshore.

If public urination, nudity, noise, liquor and trespassing are the identified problems at Kelvin Grove, then create bylaws (in the absence of those already in place) that prohibits EVERYONE from urinating, undressing to nudity, being noisy, drinking liquor and trespassing.
If the local residents are taking offence to scuba divers dressing down to a bathing suit/shorts, then maybe go for a walk down to the beach and look at the people suntanning in their "offensive" bikinis and speedos. Not to mention all the "offensive" sweaty people who are out for a jog while wearing nothing other than a pair of shorts and sports bra.

Regards,
*********
Squamish, BC

 

[paddledive]

Sent to P.Akerhielm, A.Page and CC'd the media.

Section 10 of the Community Charter says:
Relationship with Provincial laws
10 (1) A provision of a municipal bylaw has no effect if it is inconsistent with a Provincial enactment.

Section 8 of the Human Rights Code of British Columbia says:
Discrimination in accommodation, service and facility
8 (1) A person must not, without a bona fide and reasonable justification,

(a) deny to a person or class of persons any accommodation, service or facility customarily available to the public, or

(b) discriminate against a person or class of persons regarding any accommodation, service or facility customarily available to the public

because of the race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, religion, marital status, family status, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation or age of that person or class of persons.

(2) A person does not contravene this section by discriminating

(a) on the basis of sex, if the discrimination relates to the maintenance of public decency or to the determination of premiums or benefits under contracts of life or health insurance, or

(b) on the basis of physical or mental disability or age, if the discrimination relates to the determination of premiums or benefits under contracts of life or health insurance.

The City of Vancouver has successfully and justifiably been able to create an enforceable bylaw(s) that restricts non-resident parking in certain areas of the City. This is because the homes in these specific areas have no driveways or garages. The residents have no other option but to park on the street in front of their home. This is what they mean by a bona fide and reasonable justification. This is not the case in Lions Bay.

To say that the Kelvin Grove parking lot does, on occasion, become very busy thus making it difficult for the residents to find a spot, just isn't going to cut it. There are many Parks in Lower Mainland (eg. Lynn Canyon Regional Park in North Vancouver) that frequently become very busy and finding a parking spot is a challenge. Unfortunately, there is no provision for these municipalities to restrict the parking to "residents only". Neither can Lions Bay.

Regards,

********

 

[Sintax604]

Holy crap Paddledive! You have really done your homework and put it to good use!

Thanks for jumping up to the front line of the fight! They certainly won't be able to ignore facts like that, especially when it was also sent to the media.

Clearly, they'll have to change the bylaws. I'm wondering if this would be a good time to show them that we aren't just interested in getting access back but that we'd like to help everyone live happily together. Perhaps we could make some suggestions to them for accommodating us and limiting problems for residents at the same time?

-Install pay parking vendor in the parking lot
-Upgrade washroom facility to include a change room
-Install a "blind" near the parking lot for getting changed

All of these ideas also benefit swimmers and other park visitors as well as residents and can be funded by the parking fees. Any other ideas?

 

[Les]

Very well done "paddledive"! Many thanks for your initiative to research and reply to the Village of Lions Bay on all of our behalf.

I agree with "Sintax" that we need to work together with the residents and find the root issues and lets deal with them to make this work for everyone.

 

[paddledive]

Glad to do it.

- Sintax and Les
I'm totally on side with the idea of working with Lions Bay to alleviate their concerns with scuba divers (upgrading the washroom to include a change room & installing a blind at the parking lot). I would even go as far as trying to arrange a donation box from the divers to make this happen.

But I am not on side with the idea of a parking vendor in the parking lot until they amend their bylaws to say that ALL users must pay for parking including their own residents.

 

[James Bond boat entry]

I took a drive out there on Sunday, there are 5 parking spaces for visitors that can be used for 3 hours and there was no mention of a parking fee.

Also, sent a message to Transport Canada lets see if this turns up the heat.

Hello,

I was reviewing a municipal bylaw of a local community (Village of Lions Bay) that is situated on Howe Sound in the Province of British Columbia.

The bylaw is as follows under section 9.1:

http://lionsbay.synaxisits.com/Bylaw414ParksRegulations.pdf

"No person shall use any motorized boat, water sled, water skis or other water borne contrivance or thing propelled by a motor, for recreational purposes, within two hundred metres (200 m) of any park or beach. Boats accessing an anchor buoy are exempted from this provision, but must at the boat's dead slow speed."

It has always been understanding, the ocean or sea below the low tide line falls under the statutory authority of Her Majesty in the Right Canada (Federal Government); Also there is no mention of a water lot in this bylaw.

If this municipal bylaw is in conflict of Federal Government legislation, what steps is Transport Canada going to take to resolve this anomaly.

Yours very truly,

Blah blah blah

 

[vancouverdiver]

Way to go paddle dive! Great job on the research!

 

[paddledive]

Good work Mr Bond (James Bond),

I hadn't noticed that 9.1
You are right. It's federal, not municipal and they cannot regulate the waters because it's not theirs.

Akin to me saying, uhmmm, I don't like it when my next door neighbour watches TV late at night. So I've just passed a bylaw in my home to say that my neighbour can't watch TV later than 10pm....Now if I can only find someone in my neighbour's home that is willing to enforce my bylaw....

Is your "license to kill" due for a re-cert soon? Can I get in on that?

 

[paddledive]

Hey James,

Earlier you said: "The village of Lions Bay has another problem, in their bylaws concerning parks, it stipulates under section 14.1 the minimum fine is $2000.00 to maximum of $10,000.

When you look at the regulations concerning the Community Charter, a bylaw fine cannot exceed $1000.00"

I tried to find this, but saw that the Community Charter stipulates a maximum fine of up to $10,000.

"Penalties in relation to Offence Act prosecutions
263 (1) A bylaw under section 260 (1) [enforcement powers] may establish one or more of the following penalties to which a person convicted of an offence in a prosecution under the Offence Act is liable:

(a) a minimum fine;

(b) a maximum fine of up to $10 000; "

Don't get me wrong. Either a minimum $2000 or a max of $10,000 is a little steep for a parking ticket or 'illegal' scuba diving. I could see $2000 as an appropriate amount if you set the Park on fire!

 

[CapitanBlack]

Upon returning after a dive, rather than go back down into the park and wait their turn at the washroom to change, too many of them strip down to sometimes total nudity at their cars and then urinate around the parking lot, within view of residences. They have also done this at the entrance of the park, while people with children were passing. This behavior does not occur at Whytecliff Park or Porteau Cove, and may well be the behavior of a minority. That said, residents from the immediate area and elsewhere in Lions Bay have many anecdotes and photographs, and two members on Council have personally experienced rude and provocative behavior of this kind by divers.

Urinate around parking?! Total nudity at the cars - what a heck??!!

Have never ever seen that - people change dive suites, but I never seen any nude diver over there...
And moreover I've never seen any diver who was urinating somewhere outside of the public washroom.

We have to punish them - otherwise BC will revert to the canton Geneva in Switzerland, where I've lived for 4 years.
Nice place - water and mountains around, but there is only 1/4 of shoreline is publicly accessible and the rest of it historically belongs to the "grand bourgeois". Well, Switzerland is definitely a country where richmans rules, but people are fighting for their rights over there. Another interesting resource is here http://virus.rsr.ch/sujet-20-juillet

And it looks like they have a great success...