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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A piece of Old Town waterfront will be getting a major facelift within the next month, says the mayor.

Matthew Grogono, left, and Scott Mitchell survey "government dock" in Old Town on Tuesday. The City of Yellowknife has leased the property from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans and is calling on unauthorized users to move their property from the dock. - Laura Busch/NNSL photo

The City of Yellowknife has negotiated a 50-year lease with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for the waterfront property in Old Town known as "government dock" and is currently in the process of having the lease finalized. The move is the city's first step in implementing the Yellowknife Harbour plan, which was adopted by city council on June 25.

"It's a remarkable resource, and if well-managed it's great, but if it's badly managed, it's bad for a lot of people," said Matthew Grogono, a Yellowknife Bay houseboat owner and founding member of Old Town Glassworks.

"I wish the City of Yellowknife all the best in managing a complicated, multi-faceted little activity centre."

Leasing the government dock is the first physical step that the city has taken since unveiling the harbour plan last year. The main goal of the entire plan is to make the waterfront - and Old Town in general - more accessible to the public, said Mayor Gord Van Tighem.

"The city is aiming to take over the administration of the area, which means formalizing some of the informal parking and storage arrangements and longer-term, providing some sort of use and making it look better," said Van Tighem.

Ultimately, the city hopes that the space will be able to provide short-term parking, picnic space and waterfront access to visitors, while balancing the needs of everyone who currently uses the wharf. Van Tighem said that he expects the lease to be finalized within two weeks.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) will be responsible for the environmental clean up of the site, while the city will spearhead the clean up of informal storage on the property.

Little control has been exercised over a number of boats, various machinery, decrepit vehicles - some missing engine blocks - and other odds and ends deposited on the site - mostly by residents in the area.

"Minimum of once a week, we get a complaint ... about the abundance of derelict vehicles that are stored around there," said Van Tighem.

Cleanups have been arranged from time to time, but the accumulating boats and vehicles are "like perennials, they keep popping up again," he said.

When asked about their thoughts on the city taking over and cleaning up government dock, several houseboaters expressed that they were happy the space would be getting an overhaul, and hoped the transition would be a smooth one.

"It's about time somebody did something, that's all I know," said Mitchell. Mitchell lives on a barge just past the property line from lot 10 - the lot the city plans to lease.

While he agrees with the main principle of the harbour plan, which is to make the area more accessible to visitors and tourists, Mitchell said the plan does not address parking.

"How are they supposed to bring a whole bunch of extra people to Old Town if there's no parking?" he asked.

Mitchell works as a senior adviser for contaminants and remediation directorate project with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. He said he expects that a full environmental remediation of the site - which used to be next to the oil lines that ran fuel from the city's storage tanks on Jolliffe Island to the mainland - would be very costly for DFO.

Officials at DFO were unavailable to comment on the department's clean-up plan for the site at press time.

"I'm glad that all the storage is going, but I hope they don't interfere with the use of the space," said long-time houseboater Gary Vaillancourt.

"Because the people who actively use it live on and use the water."

Vaillancourt said that he hopes for a smooth transition where the city, Old Towners and houseboaters can work together to come up with a waterfront space that accommodates everyone and can be used by visitors.

"I just hope they accommodate what's here instead of forcing it into some kind of a template," he said.

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