Jarvis: ‘We have to do something’

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It was sunny and hot, and the beach beckoned on the Saturday of the Victoria Day weekend.

A 24-year-old man waded in for a swim.

His body was found five days later.

City council will probably approve a motion Monday to conduct an environmental assessment on moving Sand Point Beach instead of waiting until 2024.

The real question is, what will happen after that, when council is faced with the multimillion-dollar project?

Councillors should approve, and work should begin, immediately.

“We have to do something,” Mayor Drew Dilkens said Tuesday in announcing the motion by Ward 7 Coun. Jeewen Gill to launch the environmental assessment immediately.

Yes, we do.

Six people have drowned since the beach opened in in 1980: 38-year-old Bernard Parent in 1986, 14-year-old Kristina Jackson in 1996, 15-year-old Mamo Gorow in 1999, 45-year-old Naseer Hanna in 2005, 22-year-old Muneeba Ehsan in 2010 and the 24-year-old man 12 days ago. Most drowned in the same area, due to the same circumstances, on the west side of the beach, close to the deep and swiftly moving shipping channel.

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Dilkens was the first official at the scene when Kristina Jackson drowned. He was an auxiliary police officer and a lifeguard.

The beach is safe, when people follow the rules, he said Tuesday.

But several days after the latest drowning, Chris Kulman, who lives near Sand Point, saw three girls swimming in the forbidden waters. As Dilkens announced the motion for the environmental assessment, a fisherman stood in the water dangerously close to the shipping channel.

There is a lifeguard at Sand Point in July and August. But the summer heat waves start in May and continue through September. And, as it did on the Saturday of the Victoria Day weekend, the beach beckons. Sand Point is popular. More than 30,000 people a year use it.

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Still, the city can’t police the beach 24 hours a day. The plan to move it “has been on the books for a number of years,” Dilkens said. At least eight years, that is. It had been in the capital plan for three years when I wrote about it in 2016.

“It’s not like we weren’t doing something already,” the mayor said.

The city has enhanced the signs warning of the danger, added fencing, moved the volleyball net farther east and rebuilt the lifeguard tower. That’s it. Council has never shown much interest in Sand Point. Few candidates talked about it in the Ward 7 by-election last year.

The city had set aside $1.1 million in its 10-year capital plan for the “full re-do” that Dilkens cited Tuesday. But that project was originally estimated to cost $5 million and will probably cost more now.

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I guess the good news is that the first step, the required environmental assessment, will now happen three years earlier than scheduled.

The bad news is that it took another drowning to do this.

Sand Point is a natural beach in the middle of a manufacturing city with the longest, hottest summers in Canada. It’s a gift. But 10 months of the year, it’s a dump. A chain link fence runs across the front of the property like a scar. A dated, ugly building houses washrooms and a concession where you can’t buy lemonade and ice cream because it’s shuttered. The grass is patchy, and there’s litter and debris that washes onto the shore.

But the potential! It’s 488 metres of beachfront and 2.6 acres of park. In the summer, the water can reach a temperate 27C. It’s clear enough to see the sandy bottom. The view is priceless. Across the water to the west, there’s lush Peche Island in the Detroit River. To the east, there’s, well, water and sky —  Lake St. Clair.

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The city could do so much with it. Former city parks director Phil Roberts proposed what he called a “rather lofty” recommendation: designate Sand Point a Blue Flag Beach, an internationally recognized and respected designation awarded to beaches and marinas that meet strict criteria for water quality, environmental management and education, safety and services. That was one of 13 key recommendations in the new parks master plan in 2016.

People have suggested all kinds of wonderful things — a wood pier jutting over the water with benches and lights at night, a concession with a rooftop patio overlooking the water, a pavilion for shade, an amphitheatre, gardens with native plants, murals and sculptures.

What did Windsor Works, the major report on how to diversify and grow our economy, tell us? It said retaining and attracting talent is the single most important factor, and doing that is “inextricably linked” to the kind of city you build, whether it’s a place where people want to live, if it has amenities that create a high quality of life. Sand Point could be an amenity like no other.

As Dilkens said Tuesday, the pandemic has also reinforced the importance of outdoor community spaces.

We’ve spent or budgeted millions of dollars for Peche Island and the Celestial Beacon.

But we’ve done next to nothing at Sand Point. It’s the most neglected waterfront in the city.

City council will face sticker shock when the environmental assessment is finished. But if we can spend an eye-popping and questionable $7 million on the Celestial Beacon, we can spare $5 million for Sand Point Beach.

ajarvis@postmedia.com