Since 2017, when the Town of Innisfil adopted the Roads Ends Program as part of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan, the municipality has transformed some of the public road ends that provide access to Lake Simcoe into parkettes and beaches.
Improvements have been carried out at the lake end of Gilford Road, ShoreAcres Drive, and the 9th Line, now known as Bonsecours Beach.
In 2020, the Big Bay Point Road end was next on the list. A budget was set, and a survey of residents living within a 15-minute walk of the road end provided direction: 69 percent of respondents wanted the town to remove the road, expand the beach, and eliminate parking in the area.
In August of 2020, the design was awarded to PML Consultants Ltd. The project will include a retaining wall along the north side of an expanded beach area, an accessible viewing platform near the entrance, picnic tables and benches and $50,000 in stormwater and drainage improvements.
On June 16 of this year, the tender for the project closed. Low bidder was KJ Excavating, with a bid of $343,246 - an amount that exceeded the construction budget by $73,346.
In its meeting on Wednesday night, Innisfil Council agreed to increase the overall budget for the project by $145,000 – adding not only the additional funds for construction, but another $71,654 for extra staff time, a 10 percent contingency and other engineering and design expenses.
The staff report requesting the increase explained that 55 percent of the funding would come from the Alternate Revenue Source (ARS) reserve (money received from the OLG and Gateway Casino), and 45 percent from Parks Development Charges.
The report also indicated that any monies unspent at the completion of the project will be returned to source.
Deputy Mayor Dan Davidson identified one potential problem with the design for the new parkette and beach. The consultant recommended that the “large existing landscape rocks” along the north shoreline should be preserved and protected.
Deputy Mayor Davidson suggested that will pose an ongoing expense.
“The ice does a lot, a lot of damage to the shoreline,” he said. Davidson also warned that ice anglers, in accessing the frozen lake in winter, might shift the boulders with their vehicles. “I just hope we have a lot of money in reserves to sort of fix that up every spring.”
“We are mindful of the ice conditions,” responded Director of Growth Leo DeLoyde, promising that the contingency built into the new budget would make it possible for the boulders to be preserved “in a thoughtful and permanent way.”
