Ontario is handing off parts of Wasaga Beach
The idea is to turn the tiny town into a crackerjack tourist destination
Ontario’s Ministry of Environment is planning to hand off portions of Wasaga Beach Provincial Park to the local government for a “tourism enhancement,” according to a notice posted in June. Queen’s Park will also invest an additional $38 million toward the project, Premier Doug Ford announced in May. The transfer comes with the caveat that the beach remain public.
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“I can tell you that the citizens of Wasaga wouldn’t have it any other way,” mayor Brian Smith said in an email.
About half of the land includes beaches and environmentally sensitive dunes the piping plover, an endangered bird species, calls home. The other half, roughly 75 acres of mostly paved parking lots, will be incorporated into a community-led waterfront master plan, says Smith.
“Our vision is to become an iconic four-season recreation and nature-based destination that protects, celebrates and educates people about the rare dunes, wildlife and heritage that make our town so unique,” says Smith.
To see the development through, the province has also proposed amendments to the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act, drawing outrage from environmental organizations.
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“It is appalling that the current government is trying to give away big parts of one of our most popular parks,” said Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence Canada, in a press release last week.
But Smith says that any proposed projects would not touch the beach or harm sensitive environments and that federal and provincial protections will remain in place.
In March, Wasaga inked a separate deal, selling a chunk of commercially zoned town-owned land to Sunray Group. The move represents a $45-million investment from the corporation and includes building a luxury hotel, year-round shops and an outdoor public square.
The town is currently assembling a panel of experts to come up with a vision for the rest of the land. And while there are no specifics yet, Smith says that “anything is better than parking lots that sit empty for nine months of the year.”
An earlier version of this article conflated details of the provincial hand-off with those of the commercial sale to Sunray Group. The land sold to Sunray was already town owned and commercially zoned. The provincial parkland handed to the town of Wasaga will be part of a waterfront revitalization plan, but this plan has yet to be created. There are currently no plans to build hotels, shops or restaurants on the parkland.
