'A community loss': Neighbour upset by West Vancouver plan to sell beach access path to private owner

A public beach access trail in West Vancouver is about to become private property.

Christopher Molineaux has used the path at the bottom of 30th Street to access the waterfront since moving to the neighbourhood 13 years ago.

He's furious that the district's mayor and council decided to sell it as a way of sweetening the deal for an adjacent property also owned by the municipality.

"It feels like the announcement is, 'West Vancouver public amenities are for sale;' that the money coming in is more important than the wishes of the community," Molineaux told CTV News Wednesday.

Mark Sager, the district's mayor, explained that the neighbouring lot had been listed for more than a year, but received only one offer, which he characterized as "very low."

"We weren’t getting any offers even close to being acceptable because the property was too narrow, the Realtors told us," Sager said.

Recently, a prospective buyer offered $6.5 million, but only if the beach access path was also included.

Molineaux takes issue with the mayor and council's decision to accept the offer, rather than keeping the access path in public ownership.

"What's happened is the realistic market value of the property was not as high as the mayor and council wanted it to be," he said. "It was not an unsaleable lot. It was merely one that was saleable in a little over the $5-million range."

The mayor wants to use the proceeds from the sale to buy the final waterfront house that's preventing the Ambleside seawall from being continuous, something West Vancouver council has wanted to do for 40 years.

Sager also noted that there is another public beach access trail a short distance down the road.

"(Molineaux) is now going to have to walk a little bit further to the east to get down to the water," the mayor said.

"And I apologize to him. This is just a community compromise. If the municipality had all the money in the world, it would be fantastic to keep it, but if we are going to acquire that last property, we are going to need the funds."

Molineaux doesn't want apologies. He wants the local community to take action to stop the sale of the path.

"The actual bylaw has to be adopted, so there is some time to speak to councillors, to speak to the mayor," he said. "It's totally a community loss, and it casts an ugly light on what the future could hold." 

With files from CTV News Vancouver's Shannon Paterson