FORK LAKE - After receiving conflicting feedback from residents, day users and campers on how public spaces along the beachfront at Fork Lake should be utilized and protected, Lac La Biche County council will suspend planned upgrades until more community consultations take place.
The consultations, which County administrators hope can be completed this summer, will focus on three main beach access sites — the beach and environmental reserve in front of Fork Lake Estates, Fork Lake Campground and Bennett Beach.
Access and safety complaints
Ongoing safety issues caused by vehicles traveling into beach areas have led to resident complaints and eventually resulted in municipal officials installing gates and a gravel parking lot at the main entry point to Bennett Beach.
While some residents and users appreciated the traffic control measures at the busy recreation spot, not everyone is on board with the move to limit access of motorized vehicles to the beach front.
“Some residents want everything shut down and don't want to have any kind of vehicle access, other residents have golf carts to ATVs to vehicles that want to get out there. So we do know there are a number of issues that we need to find proper access,” said Darrell Lessmeister, the Associate Chief Administrative Officer for Lac La Biche County who oversees the recreation department.
“My fear is that if we don't do anything, we are going to end up with a problem — and it's there already," Lessmeister said. “We got to find something that's more obtainable and that is a long-term plan, because I don't think this is going to go away unfortunately.”
Currently, one major concern at the Fork Lake beach sites are residents and visitors crossing environmentally-sensitive areas with motorized vehicles. Without the implementation of proper access and parking areas, Lessmeister says, safety concerns and damage to the environmental reserve are likely to continue.
The Fork Lake campsite is in the most eastern corner of the municipality, near the border with the neighbouring Municipal District of Bonnyville. The campsite can see complaint calls waiting more than half an hour for response times from municipal enforcement officers.
Consulting with experts
Councillor Lorin Tkachuk says the more additional community feedback that is gathered, the more likely the project will be successful.
“We can't stress enough how important the community consultation part is, especially when we're talking about access, whether it's adding or removing access to something that people are used to using,” Tkachuk said.
Municipal administrators will now work with consultants to develop an overall plan, host community consultations and analyze findings based on public input.
“We might learn that we're going in the wrong direction or maybe they want to continue... I think the information that we will gather will be well worth it.”
Contracting the services of the consulting firm to plan and run the Fork Lake Beach public forums over the next few months will cost the County $30,000.
According to Lessmeister, the partnership with the consulting firm was chosen because of the company’s prior experience in the area. A previous concept project by the firm to develop an access point across from Fork Lake Estates was kiboshed by Council after the project was estimated to cost $1.3 million.
