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Douglas Todd: Pressure builds to complete Fraser River Trail through Vancouver's private Marine Drive Golf Club

While other golf clubs along the river have cooperated, the private Marine Drive Golf Club has for decades refused to budge on calls to remove its barricade to about 700 metres of the Fraser River Trail.

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Pressure is building in Vancouver to complete a pedestrian trail along the Fraser River.

Picking up on the city’s earlier recommendations to fill in the gaps of what is now a scenic but disjointed trail, Vancouver council recently voted to bring together a range of major players to make the history-filled mighty Fraser more accessible to walkers and cyclists.

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Led by Coun. Michael Wiebe, the effort will put more pressure on the private Marine Drive Golf Club and other riverside property owners to cooperate in creating an environmentally sensitive trail that will run from the University of B.C. to the border with Burnaby — and eventually to Hope.

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“The Fraser River has incredible importance to why Vancouver is here in the first place. And we kind of ignore it. We turn our backs on the river. I think it’s time to welcome it back into the Vancouver family,” said Wiebe, who introduced the successful motion to create an inter-governmental Fraser River working group.

“We really need, especially, to offer some more help to south Vancouver,” he said. “The people down there do not have enough green space. They’ve got one of the lowest urban forest covers. There needs to be better access to the water there. We can’t expect them to drive to Jericho Beach all the time.”

Wiebe was inspired to act after meeting earlier this year with a people who want to enhance the riverfront and overcome trail blockages. They include former B.C. premiers Mike Harcourt and Ujjal Dosanjh, former city councillors Peter Ladner and Heather Deal, Musqueam First Nation members, the great-grandson of the pioneer who originally gave his land to create the Marine Drive Golf Club, riverside residents, cyclists, clergy and an informal group of professional planners.

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The private Marine Drive Golf Club, at 7425 Yew St., has for decades refused to budge on calls to remove its barricade to about 700 metres of the Fraser River Trail. Advocates for completing the trail maintain the club does not own the river foreshore or the intertidal zone, arguing it’s Crown land.

Other golf clubs along the river have cooperated for the benefit of the common good.

The adjacent McCleery Golf Club, which is owned by the city, and the nearby private Point Grey Golf Club, both allow the Fraser River Trail to run along their southern perimeters.

But the private Marine Drive club’s manager and directors, almost all of whom live on the west side of Vancouver, have consistently refused to respond to Postmedia questions.

Wiebe is especially enthusiastic that Wade Grant of the Musqueam First Nation, which has a reserve along the foreshore of the mouth of the Fraser River, has been in on the community-led discussions about completing the trail.

“This is an important piece that has been missing before.”

Wiebe, a Green party councillor who is also vice-chair of Metro Vancouver’s regional parks committee, is thrilled other major property owners along the river, including east of the Arthur Laing Bridge, are showing renewed interest in turning it into a prime destination for nature-loving residents and visitors.

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“The Port of Vancouver is super-excited,” said Wiebe, noting the Crown corporation wants their First Nations specialist on Indigenous relations involved in improving the Fraser River Trail. TransLink, which controls some riverfront property, is also now being more welcoming, he said. So, too, are some private developers along the river.

And it’s extremely positive, Wiebe said, that the City of Vancouver’s former chief engineer, Jerry Dobrovolny, is now chief administrative officer for Metro Vancouver Regional District. In 2014, while with the city, Dobrovolny’s team endorsed an important Metro Vancouver plan titled Experience the Fraser: Lower Fraser River Corridor Project.

The Metro Vancouver Regional District endorses completing an extended Fraser River Trail, from the University of B.C. through Vancouver and Burnaby to New Westminster. Only sections of the trail are already in place.
The Metro Vancouver Regional District endorses completing an extended Fraser River Trail, from the University of B.C. through Vancouver and Burnaby to New Westminster. Only sections of the trail are already in place.

While Fraser River Trail advocates like David Griggs, a retired planner for UBC, welcome the big vision of Wiebe and Metro Vancouver, they also want to focus on smaller efforts, particularly the long-standing campaign to urge the Marine Drive Golf Club to stop blocking the pleasant trail that already exists between Fraser River Park and Southlands neighbourhood.

The Marine Drive Golf Club currently has high fences across the trail, which are peppered with intimidating signs warning: No Trespassing, This Is Not a Public Right of Way, Dangerous and Violators Will be Prosecuted. The fences force walkers and cyclists to go on a dangerous three-kilometre detour onto a busy street, just to reconnect with the existing Fraser River Trail.

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Wiebe, who is aware of the conflict, says he has friends who are members of the Marine Drive Golf Club. It has a history of stubbornness. In 2007 it went to the Supreme Court of Canada to successfully argue that female members had no right to use its male-only lounge.

“The members don’t want to lose the feel of their course. But there’s opportunities to make it work,” Wiebe said, describing the layout of the 18-hole golf course and its geographical relation to the riverfront.

“I think it would be helpful to bring the golf club into a discussion about how they could be part of something bigger,” Wiebe said. He maintained the course could remain an excellent one at the same time pedestrians could access its foreshore.

“Now there’s going to be more momentum and pressure.”

dtodd@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/@douglastodd

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