{"id":1748,"date":"2025-08-11T17:23:30","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T20:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/standrewswharf.com\/?p=1748"},"modified":"2025-08-11T17:23:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T20:23:30","slug":"saint-andrews-town-council-votes-for-market-wharf-refurbishment-despite-public-pushback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/standrewswharf.com\/?p=1748","title":{"rendered":"Saint Andrews town council votes for Market Wharf refurbishment despite public pushback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Councillors voted 6-1 in favour of the refurbishment at a meeting Tuesday<\/a><\/h2>\n
\n
Ian Curran<\/a><\/span>\u00a0\u00b7\u00a0<\/span>CBC News\u00a0\u00b7\u00a0<\/span>
\n
\n
\"People<\/div>
The moment when the Saint Andrews town council voted 6-1 to tender the Market Wharf refurbishment. (Town of Saint Andrews)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

The meeting room at the W. C. O’Neill\u00a0Arena was over capacity on Tuesday night as\u00a0Saint Andrews town council decided the fate of the Market Wharf refurbishment.<\/p>\n

In a six-to-one vote, the project will go out to tender, with construction to start as soon as possible. The goal is to finish before next year’s tourist season.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0vote came after a two-month coastal study from engineering firm Gemtec\u00a0concluded the proposed infill design “has minimal impact on flow patterns” and “erosion has been mitigated in the design.”<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
The study was commissioned because some residents were concerned about environmental impacts from the proposed design.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The entire process has attracted a lot of interest and feedback from the community.<\/p>\n

“We had to turn people away,” said Mayor Kate Akagi. “Our bylaw enforcement officer was there to keep people from filling the room.”<\/p>\n

With a line of residents crowding around the door, Akagi said it wasn’t\u00a0typical of most council meetings, which see one or two residents in attendance.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"A<\/div>
The Saint Andrews town council chamber was at capacity at Tuesday night’s meeting to decide the fate of the wharf refurbishment.\u00a0(Town of Saint Andrews)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

“As we already stated before we went through with … Gemtec, if there was little movement and influx, then we would go forward with the tendering,” said Akagi. “And that’s what we’ve done.”<\/p>\n

The study cost the town $25,000.<\/p>\n

“I’m not a scientist,” said Akagi. “I have to go by what they say because we paid the money.”<\/p>\n

After seven years of working on the project,\u00a0council argued\u00a0they’ve had enough consultation\u00a0and need to get the project started\u00a0before funding runs out.<\/p>\n

Residents like Tom Sparling did\u00a0not agree.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Councillors spar over wharf consultation timeline:<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/div>\n
\n
\n

After lengthy debate, Saint Andrews moves ahead with wharf revitalization<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n
After almost two hours of debate, Saint Andrews town council voted 6-1 to continue with the tender process for a major wharf revitalization project.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“It’s never too late to do the right thing,” said Sparling. “Lots of projects go through a process and don’t get built.”<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
Sparling was one of many residents who participated in the initial hearings for the wharf refurbishment. He lives on Water Street, down the coast from the wharf.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“It’s going to be horrific in terms of what it does visually,” said Sparling. “I think it’s going to be a scar on the face of a very historic town.”<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"A<\/div>
Residents like Tom Sparling are concerned about the impacts of the project, including the visual change to the historic harbour.\u00a0(Michael Heenan\/CBC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

When Sparling was asked if he thinks there are any positives with moving forward with the wharf project, he simply said, “No.”<\/p>\n

Resident Steve Saunders agrees.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been going out on the wharf since I was little,” said Saunders. “This thing that the town is proposing is an eyesore for what people come to Saint Andrews to see.”<\/p>\n

Saunders, who has a background in computational fluid dynamic engineering, made a peer review presentation of the study at the meeting.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"A<\/div>
Steve Saunders presents his peer review on the Gemtec study at Tuesday’s meeting of town council in Saint Andrews.\u00a0(Town of Saint Andrews)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

“What [Gemtec]\u00a0was asked to do by the town was not rigorous enough from an environmental standpoint,” said Saunders. “Their assessment of sediment transport was insufficient, they only took four samples.”<\/p>\n

Gemtec responded to CBC News in a statement and said “adjacent landowners should not be concerned about erosion from this structure.”<\/p>\n

Saunders also presented to the council back in 2023 and pointed out that infill similar to the proposed design is illegal in many states in the United States.<\/p>\n

However, he ran into a roadblock at Tuesday’s meeting.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
“I’d like to amend the agenda,” said Coun. Kurt Gumushel at Tuesday’s meeting to “skip tonight’s presentation and move to the business at hand.”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Gumushel argued\u00a0that Section 21.3 of the Local Governance Act states that without two-thirds of council agreeing, they cannot have a presentation twice on the same topic.<\/p>\n

They went to a vote\u00a0and allowed Saunders to present.<\/p>\n

“I think maybe they were afraid of what I had to say,” said Saunders.<\/p>\n

Council will meet in August to discuss the tendering of the project.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Councillors voted 6-1 in favour of the refurbishment at a meeting Tuesday Ian Curran\u00a0\u00b7\u00a0CBC News\u00a0\u00b7\u00a0Posted: Jul 30, 2025 4:43 PM ADT | Last Updated: July 30 The moment when the Saint Andrews town council voted 6-1 to tender the Market Wharf refurbishment. (Town of Saint Andrews) The meeting room at the W. C. O’Neill\u00a0Arena was ","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":22,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrewswharf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrewswharf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrewswharf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrewswharf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrewswharf.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/standrewswharf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1749,"href":"https:\/\/standrewswharf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748\/revisions\/1749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrewswharf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrewswharf.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrewswharf.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrewswharf.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}