Despite the wind and the threatening sky, citizens mobilized more than a hundred people during the peaceful demonstration held at the Batiscan beach, Friday August 18, 2023. Dressed on a bench, civil code in hand, we gathered so that the residents, the municipality, in short everyone recognized that the coastline of the beach is public.
When a woman was stopped by the police because she was supposedly on private land, we contacted the Citizen Association for the Accessibility of Batiscan Beach to help them put things in order. the chaos that has quietly settled on the beautiful sandy beach of about a kilometer and a half which borders the river, in Mauricie. Let's say that together, we came across an iceberg of which we could only see the tip.
The obvious: the coastline is public
We first confirmed what citizens rightly believed: the coastline where the event was held belongs to the Ministry of the Environment (MELCCFP). It was not sold to anyone and is therefore indeed public. What surprised us a little more was the size of the public portion (below the high water line) which leaves the opportunity to enjoy a width of approximately 15 meters of beach!
That said, we understood why some local residents could be confused. There is quite a bit of land on the shore that was once public and is now private. They were public, because they were in the river, but were filled with sand (backfilled) from 1954 for the opening of the seaway 5 years later. So before, the lot boundaries went up to the old high water mark, but no longer since the embankment.
The Ministry of the Environment favored the privatization of Batiscan beach
Now, backfilled parts, which are what we call flood zones here, are private because the MELCCFP sold them. Indeed, the ministry is authorized to sell part of the State's water domain which has been the subject of backfilling under certain conditions. For what? Their answer: to confer clear title to the occupants. Here, it rather had the opposite effect by adding to the confusion. What is really difficult to explain is that the ministry refused the municipality's request in 2017 to acquire the remaining flood-prone areas to turn them into a park. He instead chose to sell them to individuals.
The Batiscan flood zone, or the wild west of development
Not only has our department completely missed an opportunity to preserve what remains of access to water between Montreal and Quebec, but it delegates the powers to apply the restrictions provided for in the new Transitional regime for managing flood zones, from the banks and the coastline to the municipality. What Batiscan does not do.
Result: new owners are carrying out major construction and development in flood-prone areas – riprap, land raising and turfing. In the event of flooding, this type of development has the effect of directing excess water onto neighboring lands, flooding them significantly.
We know that there has been only one case brought to the attention of the MELCCFP since 2012. However, we have seen more than one case of illegal development in a flood zone. The price of the plots sold by the ministry is relatively low, around 10,000$, but by making these modifications, local residents succeed in greatly increasing the value of their land, and they enrich themselves at the expense of sharing a resource. collective.
Batiscan wants to make its “beach” disappear from our vocabulary
Suffice to say that the municipality is silent and complicit in this state of affairs. The Batiscan municipal council has modified the development plan of the MRC des Chenaux in order to remove the word “beach” from the Land Use Plan. As if to erase from the minds of Quebecers the very essence of this magnificent place in order to limit visits there, while the recreational tourism potential is considerable.
Article 7 of regulation 2020-124, adopted on January 20, 2021, stipulates that the section “Central sector of Batiscan” in the chapter relating to “Territories of interest” is modified:
- By removing, in the subtitle “Central sector of Batiscan (quay, museum, Signal Office, tourist office, beach)”, the word “beach”;
- By the removal, in “Interest” of “and aesthetic”;
- By the removal, in “Characteristics” of “Only beach on the St. Lawrence River accessible to the public”
Urgency to act
In short, the case of Batiscan illustrates the acceleration of privatization and the flaws in the monitoring and surveillance of work authorized in flood zones. This is too heavy a responsibility to entrust to small municipalities. Conversely, when the ministry takes care of it directly, the offenders must remove their illegal developments, as was the case with the Batiscan marina.
At the time of writing, there is only one lot left that is still government property. If it were sold, everything above the shoreline would be private and the municipality would no longer be able to make arrangements to allow the public to enjoy Batiscan beach. This can only generate conflicts of use and, ultimately, lead to restrictions on access to the coastline.
Solutions to restore access to Batiscan beach
- Moratorium on the sale of the last lands which are still the property of the Quebec government.
- Intervention by the government and the MRC des Chenaux to support the municipality in the development of a public beach open to all.
- Intervention of the MELCCFP to force the owners of the illegal embankment lots to remove them and return the beach and the flood zone to their original state.
We will demand that the Quebec government implement these solutions. Stay tuned!
Source
André Bélanger
General manager
Fondation Rivières
514-272-2666, ext. 301
