Hub Staff

Council recently passed a policy that would allow for the encroachment of patios and cafés on municipally owned property from April 1 until October 30.

With the support of both Business Improvement Areas (BIAs), businesses along High Street in Southampton and within the BIA boundaries of downtown Port Elgin will be allowed to erect, install, maintain, or carry on a sidewalk café or sidewalk patio on town land. However “decking” will not be permitted on land abutting Goderich Street, but will be allowed on side streets. Patios that extend from the building façade shall not encroach more than 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) from the building, except where decking is provided, to ensure that a minimum 2 metre unobstructed pedestrian corridor is maintained. The unobstructed pedestrian corridor does not include the utility strip/boulevard areas.

Business owner Jay Reichert of Duffy’s Southampton said that this policy is a really good idea, and now with the approved trolley going from downtown Port Elgin to Southampton’s High Street it will be something that tourists could enjoy and something about which locals will be excited.

“This is long overdue,” said Reichert. “I think that this will be a great thing, keeping vitality in the town and I think that just having a place to sit and people watch... that’s exciting. It’s fun, and I know for myself seeing that (sidewalk patio) from the trolley, that’s coming up High Street... you know it’s something that would encourage me to stop and check out the town and explore.”

Businesses that would like to set up a sidewalk patio, etc., will be required to submit an application to the Town, pay non-refundable accompanying fees, and carry a minimum of $5,000,000 in liability insurance.

A contested sentence in the by-law had a few councillors in disagreement. The sentence stated that, “all applications shall be required to submit a letter from the relevant Business Improvement Association, stating that the BIA has no objections to the proposed patio or café.”

Vice Deputy Mayor, Diane Huber, understood that this is just a suggestion, but didn't want to allow the BIAs to have a “veto power.”

“Why are we giving another body authority over municipal property,” Huber said.

Councillor Cheryl Grace also felt that this could be unfair to businesses. “You could have a situation where an applicant is not well liked or popular among the leadership of the BIA and their application is not supported,” said Grace.

Manager of Development Services, Bart Toby, was in attendance during the council session and insisted that “council will always be able to override (the BIA’s decision).”

In hopes of moving past the debate Mayor Mike Smith reiterated that council does have the last word. “We are the approval authority on all of these things, so we can just take that last sentence out of the bylaw. I think we’re getting hung up here... on that one sentence.”

Deputy Mayor Luke Charbonneau didn't want to muddy the waters with the BIAs.

“This is a critical section. If you remove the ability for the BIA to override, by their own objection then you'll be undermining a piece that was negotiated to them as part of developing this policy, which will probably not be met with cheering and happiness,” Carbonneau said. He then added that council should be “careful with re-tweaking” the policy as they may be dealing with “an angry delegation down the road.”

Trying to finish the lengthy discussion Mayor Mike Smith said, “I don’t think this is likely to ever be an issue... hopefully.”

Councillor Neal Menage, attends monthly BIA meetings and said that if a business created a patio through (decking) on a side street this could be an issue for parking spots, which would be taken away. He brought up that business owners have already approached council regarding the lack of public parking spots in downtown Port Elgin in the past year.

“I asked the (Port Elgin) BIA and staff to consider an amendment (to be added), for every parking space that is approved to be removed, (for decking) a new one would need to be created,” Menage said.

Along with sidewalk patios and cafes being allowed, the policy also had an amendment that patio heaters and outdoor lighting can be used, which made the Deputy Mayor happy.

“I think the key thing with this are the important other changes, allowing heaters on the sidewalks patios, and allowing lights on sidewalk patios, a heater on a sidewalk patio is allowed in every jurisdiction everywhere on earth, except for here. So we need to get this approved in time for summer so these business owners can have a reasonable use for patios,” Charbonneau said.