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A single houseboat remains in front of the plot of land the city is looking to acquire from the GNWT. The city hopes getting jurisdiction over the land and the lake bed underneath it will allow it to regulate the houseboat community there. - Cody Punter/NNSL photo

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The City of Yellowknife is taking its first steps toward acquiring jurisdiction over the city's houseboat community.

During a committee meeting on Monday, the city of Yellowknife revealed that it is planning to acquire a portion of land in Yellowknife Bay adjacent to Rotary Park and Willow Flats that includes a swath of lake bed following the shore.

"We need to deal with the cowboys down on the bay," said city councillor Dan Wong, referring to an incident where three houseboaters moored their boats in front of the bird sanctuary near Willow Flats earlier this summer.

"This is an opportunity to have more direct control. There actually are a lot of rules down there on the bay. One of them is you don't put your houseboat in a bird sanctuary."

Coun. Cory Vanthuyne also expressed his support for acquiring the land and the area of lake bed in front of it.

"The city has an obligation within its boundaries to take on proper jurisdictions and at times particular projects," said Vanthuyne.

"This is an opportunity for the city to be able to garner some responsibility with regards to waterfront jurisdiction and be able to hopefully develop some policy and some approaches with regards to what goes on in those waterfronts."

The area in question is currently under the jurisdiction of the GNWT, which acquired it from the federal government in 1980.

As such, when concerns were raised over the houseboats moored by the sanctuary, it was the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA) that served notice to them.

"The city would have been able to do something about it if we had had jurisdiction over that lot," said Mayor Mark Heyck.

According to Jeff Humble, the city's director of planning and development, the city has already begun discussions with the GNWT.

"We are in discussion with (the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs) with regards to the jurisdiction of the bay area and a strategy for dealing with the houseboats," said Humble.

Humble said the city has been exploring several options that it could use in order to regulate the houseboat community. He said the city is studying several other municipalities with houseboat communities across Canada.

"We're not reinventing the wheel here," said Humble.

Heyck said the city was treating the acquisition of the land as a pilot project as part of its long-term harbour plan. Once devolution is finalized next spring, the city hopes to acquire jurisdiction over the rest of Yellowknife Bay, including Back Bay and Jolliffe Island.

"One of the main driving factors in creating the harbour plan in the first place was the confusion around jurisdiction over the lake bed in Back Bay and Yellowknife Bay," said Heyck.

Coun. Niels Konge expressed concerns that beyond regulating the mooring of houseboats, the city did not have a plan for the land it was acquiring.

The city has yet to conduct an environmental assessment of the bay and Konge is worried that any unforeseen costs of cleaning up the area would be covered by the city.

"Really, we don't know what we're getting into," said Konge. "I would caution we could be opening up a can of worms."

Wong said the existing houseboat community by Jolliffe Island is concerned about how the city's acquisition of jurisdiction to the lake bed would affect them.

"There is really a lot of angst and worry from this community about what the city's intent is - what our long term strategic plan is for themselves and for their homes," said Wong.

Heyck said the city did not currently have any firm plans on how it would enforce its jurisdiction over those areas, were it to acquire them.

However, he said the city planned to hold extensive consultations with the houseboat community.

"We want to talk with the houseboat community themselves in terms of how they would like to see their neighbourhood," said Heyck.

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