The owners of a 62-foot (19-metre) yacht are asking the District of Sechelt for the use of the Trail Bay Wharf and day float from May to October to provide a home base for dockside dinners and Salish Sea charter operations.
The request was originally made last August, but the previous council referred it to the now-defunct Sechelt Innovations Ltd., proponent Ken Klassen said in a letter received at last week’s planning and community development committee meeting.
Klassen said his group wants to offer a variety of charter services for the Sechelt area on the Tranquility, a Pacemaker twin-diesel motor yacht that is in the completion stages of a $100,000 interior redesign.
Based on his observations last summer as a resident at the Watermark, he said, “The day float was completely unused more days than otherwise, and at no time during the summer was the float at capacity for boat moorage.”
But Coun. Alice Lutes said other uses of the wharf had to be taken into account.
“I’ve seen an awful lot of kids swimming and people fishing off that wharf through the summer months, and I don’t know that the two would mix well,” Lutes said. “Somehow I think we need to get some perspective on the numbers.”
Staff will report back on the request.
CF grants
Council approved two requests last month for grants from the Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SCCF) Legacy Fund.
The first request, for $35,800, was awarded to the Pender Harbour Advisory Council to build and erect signage in the Egmont/Pender Harbour area.
The bulk of the funds will cover the cost of building and installing eight trailhead signs, plus individual trail signs in areas that have not been posted, the group said in its proposal. About $8,400 will be spent on heritage and cutblock signs.
Among the locations recommended for trailhead signs are Menacher Road, Middlepoint Road, Garden Bay, Egmont village, Lions Park, Malaspina substation, and two Chamber of Commerce visitor information centre pullouts.
The advisory council’s trails committee will manage the project with the assistance of the Pender Harbour Hiking Club.
Discussions are underway with Sechelt Nation to include a Coast Salish welcome on all the trailhead signs.
The second request, for $25,000, was awarded for the Sechelt Residential School Commemorative Monument. The funds will be used to commission Mohawk stone sculptor Michel Beauvais to create a monument for the Sechelt Nation’s House of héwhíwus complex on Highway 101. Carved from a large red stone from a quarry on Texada Island, the sculpture will depict a grandmother holding the hands of two children, applicants Nancy and John Denham wrote in their submission.
Funds for building a kiosk (similar to the one on Davis Bay Wharf) to house the monument are being raised through a series of fundraising events and cultural activities, while the Sechelt Nation will cover the costs related to three days of celebration and ceremony in June, when the monument is scheduled to be unveiled in the complex’s parking lot, on the former residential school site.
The two grants leave a balance of almost $73,000 in the SCCF Legacy Fund.
