A Cedar resident said he is feeling less anxiety about work being done at Boat Harbour Marina.
Tiara (BHM) Holdings Inc. is planning to reconfigure the marina and last March residents expressed concern about the work. During a public meeting March 15, concerns expressed included the possible disturbing of coal sediment from an old loading operation and environmental concerns.
Ken Lockhart, who resides above the marina, said pilings are being put in and work on a parking area is being done. He said he had concerns before, but they have changed.
“It seems to me that the original proposal was to do a significant amount of dredging and filling of the marine habitat to create parking and it looks like they’re making a fairly smaller footprint for the parking area and haven’t as yet done any filling … clearly they’re putting in pilings, so they’re not intending dredging,” said Lockhart.
He said he thinks it’s going to be less damaging to the marine environment as well as the esthetics of the harbour. He said the modifications the company made seem to be appropriate and said it appears it will replace a couple of dilapidated marinas with a new one and clean things up.
“That’s all good, still, based on the fact that the original proposal was quite an imposition, that you still wonder where it will go, but from what I can see out my window, it looks all good,” said Lockhart.
He said he’s hoping that the company doesn’t do any filling to create parking.
“I hope they use the existing area, already existing land for the parking,” said Lockhart.
He also said an area for public access hasn’t been identified yet.
On March 23, Alvin Hui and Roy Ellis, operators of Tiara, told attendees at a public meeting that the company proposes building a parking lot base from riprap rock and old creosote marina pilings would be replaced with environmentally safe structures. Dredging would be minimal, they said.
The company was contacted for comment and in an e-mail, Ellis said there weren’t any updates.