Storm-battered Jericho Pier should be demolished, Vancouver park board staff recommends
Staff with the Vancouver Park Board are recommending that the damaged Jericho Pier – which has been closed since 2021 – be demolished instead of repaired or rebuilt.
The risk of future damage from extreme weather is one of the reasons the 80-year-old pier is "at the end of its service life," according to a report outlining the recommendation, which is set to come before the board at its Sept. 11 meeting.
"Over the years, the pier has been repaired several times in response to storm damage. During recurring storm surge events, the pier deck has been fully inundated. Climate change is increasing the frequency of severe storm events, and sea level rise is expected to significantly impact this site," the report says.
Mike Cotter, general manager of the Jericho Sailing Centre Association, agrees with the staff’s recommendation to tear down the dock.
“I'm emotionally attached to the Jericho Pier as anyone,” he told CTV News. “But with sea level rise, it was beyond its service life. The deck floods regularly in the winter at its current level and to repair it, really, is throwing good money after bad.”
The sailing centre has used the dock for its rescue program and adaptive sailing program, but over the last two summers since the pier’s closure, the programs were able to make changes so they wouldn’t rely on the pier.
NEW PIER COULD COST $25 MILLION
A plan for renewal was approved by the board in 2017 but staff say the project would cost as much as $25 million and notes that fundraising efforts have been largely unsuccessful.
The cost of a "like-for-like" repair of the pier would amount to $350,000, but the board says the "vulnerability" of the structure to future damage means that annual maintenance costs could come in at anywhere from $100,000 to $2.35 million.
"This vulnerability is forecast to increase in light of climate change effects [sea level rise and an increase in frequency of king tide and storm surge events]. While this option would require significantly less capital funding, the expected ongoing costs of this approach is significant, and is likely to exceed the costs of the recommended option over time," the report says.
Park Board Commissioner Tom Digby said rebuilding the existing pier does not seem feasible.
“That’s an unlikely option given the massive cost to maintain a pier like that in the face of these rising sea levels,” he said.
Digby said many other waterfronts in Vancouver are dealing with the reality of climate change.
“For me it’s just another tragic cost of climate change,” he said. “[With] sea levels rising, it’s going to go up by a metre by the end of a century, and it’s causing tremendous damage to all the assets and beaches along the waterfront.”
Instead of replacing or repairing the pier, the plan being proposed is to "deconstruct" the pier and reinforce the breakwater, which will cost between $500,000 and $2.8 million.
"The decision will not preclude future opportunities to redevelop the pier site if or when sufficient funding becomes available and if future plans for the site call for its replacement," the report concludes.
The pier was initially closed in November of 2021 due to what the board describes as "moderate damage." Two months later, a storm surge and king tide flooded and battered the pier, causing far more significant damage.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.