Cultus Lake – In what has become a hot button issue over bouy fees at Cultus Lake, the Cultus Lake Community Association and in particular, Neil McKenzie commented on the sharp rise in those fees.
Back in September, a petition started to address the fees and where the money goes.
There is a petition on change.org with more information.
By comparison, Cultus gets off easy as the same fees in Harrison are almost 5 times the amount ($500 vs $2250).
From Neil McKenzie’s original September post: If you are concerned about the massive increase in buoy fees, please email neiltmckenzie@gmail.com to discuss meeting to generate solutions.
This year the rental fees on buoys has increased 100 times greater than allowed rental increases. (In 2020 the allowed increase was 2.6%.) We are now expected to pay 3.3 times what we paid in 2020 to be able to use the same buoy in 2021.
From change.org:
1. Many of the fees in CLPB documents, charged to mooring buoys, appear arbitrary and padded
2. Most of the foreshore erosion is due to storms and any minor amount of errosion caused by boats is mostly caused by day use boaters not residents so why should resident boaters shoulder the majority of the cost?
3. All agree the docks are getting old and need maintenance but why not charge the sunbathers and swimmers for the major portion of the expense who use the docks more than boaters. Perhaps because the CLPB only has a list of mooring buoy owners so charging them is easy.
4. What value do mooring buoy owners get for the current $150.00? To be able to charge the CLPB had to get Nominal Tenure Lease from the Ministry of Lands, Forests and Natural Resource Operations at the cost of $1.
5. Current Residents have solved foreshore erosion on their own at minimal to zero cost. Why does the CLPB need a $300,000 budget for this. see picture.
6. If you don’t have a buoy, this should still concern you. If the CLPB can do this for buoys, what else will they do it too. 7 years ago this situation was incomprehensible.
Many on the Facebook thread are divided, either support the rise to curtail the flood of boaters — or to complain that the rates are too high.
Boat traffic became a major concern this summer, including a rise in accidents.
FVN reached out to the Cultus Lake Park Board and Joe Lamb told FVN that almost half of the $500 fee goes back into local projects ie maintenance of the docks, foreshore eroion and aging pylons. The other half goes to administration.
All of that was recently passed in the Cultus Lake Park budget.
Cultus Lake Park Board does not receive the type of Provincial and Federal Funding as other “resort communities” such as Whistler etc.
They have aging infrastructure that has to be kept up. Internal fees is the most likely way to pay for these projects. Lamb was blunt in wondering aloud, if the Province would increase their funding.
