Staff recommendations to sell about 200 metres of waterfront land in Lake Country will be introduced to mayor and council at a public meeting on March 6.
The land is adjacent to Gable Road, and Gable Beach in Carr’s Landing.
The sale was first proposed in the fall of 2017, and postponed when a 1,515 name petition was presented to council.
At that time, one of the ideas council had for the use of the $1.3 million dollars in revenue was to help repay a debt to Kelowna for land purchased for the Rail Trail.
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On Dec. 6, 2017, the District of Lake Country issued a press release stating that the repayment of the loan was not contingent on the sale of the waterfront.
District staff went back to the drawing board, and now have new recommendations which would see most of the waterfront land sold to private owners, with the exception of Gable Park.
The new recommendations also include that money from the sale be used to buy a waterfront home and property to expand nearby Coral Beach Park.
“It’s certainly an improvement of beach and park access in Carr’s landing and people aren’t seeing it that way,” said James Baker, Mayor of Lake Country.
Those that don’t see it that way include a group called Friends of Gable Beach.
The group doesn’t see how the sale of over 200 metres of public land to purchase a nearby property with 28 metres of lakefront makes sense.
“We were blindsided by this most recent proposal, particularly as we had, via our fall 2017 petition received such resounding support for the retention of the Gable Beach waterfront”, spokesperson Cara Reed said in a news release.
The March 6 district council meeting is expected to draw a large crowd.
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