No longer floating the idea: Charlottetown approves dock for Victoria Park

The controversial floating dock planned for Victoria Park in Charlottetown will be in the water this summer.

Charlottetown council votedfor the dock to go ahead at a meeting Monday nightbut without one main feature;boats will not be allowed to launch from it.The original plan had room for non-motorized vessels, but council changed that after hearing concerns about safety and traffic.

"We received e-mails, we received comments, we did go toa full-fledged public meeting and open house at the Charlottetown Hotel recently. There was a number of concerns, the bulk of those concerns surround the non-motorized vessels," said Mitchell Tweel, chair of the parks and recreation committee.

"So we thought as a pilot project, why not try a compromise and the compromise would be we would not proceed with with the non-motorized vessels."

The dock, which the city purchased for $51,605last year, has been asiteof controversy since then. Resident complaints eventually led to a broadlyattended public meeting in May, wherecomments were divided evenly between those for and against the project.

Project will be re-evaluated

Tweel said staff will be monitoring the usage and collecting comments from the public during thepilot project, which will run throughoutthe summerand thenbe re-evaluated.

"We have to experiment," said Tweel

"And the beauty of this particular dock. It's a modular dock. We can add, we can delete, we can subtract. The flexibility is incredible."

The vote passed six votes to four with councillors,MacLeod,Ramsay, Duffy, and Doiron voting against the project.

Mayor Philip Brown arguedthe vote should not go aheadbecause the projecthad not been reviewed by the parks and recreation committee again after the public meeting.But, when asked for her opinion, the city's solicitor said the votewas legal.

Tweel said he hopes to have the dock installed in the next two and a half weeks.

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