It seems to be a mystery for City of Richmond staff how a restaurant in Steveston got built on a waterfront boardwalk.
The Blue Canoe restaurant juts out onto the boardwalk, cutting off pedestrian traffic that has to then circle onto Bayview Street to continue down the waterfront.
“We’re not aware of a building permit that was issued for that enclosure,” said the city’s director of policy planning, John Hopkins, at Monday’s council meeting.
City staff, however, clarified to the News the focus is on “what was approved and legally secured with respect to public access on that site and building,” and not on the “building footprint.”
Hopkins told city council there doesn’t seem to be a document giving a legal right-of-way, but that is complicated by the fact the water is under provincial jurisdiction.
The city wants to create a continous boardwalk along the riverfront, but there are some sections which are currently inaccessible to the public.
The city also wants to create more access points to get onto the boardwalk.
The planning committee last week asked city staff to look into why the restaurant was built onto the boardwalk, and Hopkins said Monday it’s something that’s currently under review.
“We will be looking much further into those complex jurisdictional issues with part of the referral,” he said.
A glance at the city’s interactive map shows two applications to rezone the water lot adjacent to the property, one from 1990 to allow outdoor seating for the Dockside Restaurant & Pelican Pete’s Restaurant, Bayview Pier, and another from 1992 to rezone the property to “neighbourhood pub district.”
The former application was closed after city staff determined there was “no legal instrument” to get access to the water lot portion since it was under jurisdiction of senior government and they wouldn’t allow these legal agreements.
The latter application was to put indoor and outdoor seating, also on the water lot, but this was denied by city council in 1993.
The Richmond News has reached out to the Blue Canoe for comment.
