(Editor’s notice: Article up to date on Nov. 28 to make clear that Andrew McNeill denies having met or spoken with Stirling Fisher.)
A cottager says a stretch of sand east of Allenwood needs to be open to all, however residents who dwell alongside the water say the seaside has at all times been privately owned.
Stirling Fisher says he needs a decide to determine whether or not the stretch of seaside is public, alleging property house owners fronting on the sand amended their deeds greater than 30 years in the past to say land they don’t personal.
However Christie McNeill, whose household has owned land fronting the seaside for practically 40 years, says the deeds for her household’s property, and their neighbours, have been submitted and accepted by the Land Registry Workplace. She stated that in 2001, the Land Registrar, by itself initiative, upgraded the titles to the topic waterfront properties from the previous registry system to the brand new land titles system.
“If there were any issues with the transfers, the Land Registrar would have declined to convert the lands into the Land Titles System,” stated McNeill, the sister of Wasaga Seashore chief administrative officer Andrew McNeill.
An enchantment courtroom resolution in 1995 granted “user rights” to a bit of beachfront close to Grand Bend to the general public, overturning an earlier courtroom ruling that said the seaside was personal property because it belonged to a descendent of a household who’d obtained a grant to the waterfront greater than a century earlier.
Fisher, a Waterloo-based mortgage dealer, purchased three heaps on the non-shore facet of River Street East in June as a spot for him and his household to flee to through the summer season months, in a location the place he may additionally work remotely.
“What I wanted it for was just a cottage to go to… the beach,” he stated. “I can work remotely, I don’t necessarily have to be at my office, and maybe I could spend a few of the good summer weeks at Wasaga.”
An indication posted by the City of Wasaga Seashore warns that an entry path results in personal property.
Ian Adams Metroland
He was instructed he would have entry to the water by a 10-foot path that led to the seaside.
On the August lengthy weekend, the household took a trek down the trail to the seaside that had been highlighted within the property’s itemizing. They had been sitting on the seaside, enjoying within the sand, when Fisher claims they had been approached by Andrew McNeill, whose household owns the land beside the entry path.
“He said he owned the beach,” Fisher stated. “I said to him, ‘really? You own the whole beach?’, and he said he owns the beach (to) the waterline.”
McNeill declined to remark given his position with the municipality. He denies ever having met or spoken with Fisher.
Christie stated that in contrast to the vast majority of Wasaga Seashore’s shoreline, this specific seaside has by no means been in public possession.
“In the older areas of Wasaga Beach, the initial grant of the land from the Crown contains a ‘Crown Reserve’ along the beach, which maintains the beach in the ownership of the Crown (or the public),” she stated.
For landowners residing east of Allenwood, they’ve riparian possession rights to the water’s edge, she stated, and people rights have been confirmed through the years as numerous attorneys and the Registrar of the Land Titles Workplace would have examined title to the properties as every was purchased and bought.
The encounter with McNeill despatched Fisher down the land registry rabbit gap, as he dug by paperwork relationship again greater than 100 years to piece collectively an image of the possession alongside the water.
A plan of subdivision for the world east of Allenwood Seashore, subdivided into heaps by Charles Eberhardt in 1921.
Flos Township Picture
What Fisher stated he discovered included the needs from the household who initially owned the land that the entry and seaside stay in public fingers.
Based on land registry paperwork, Lot 21 within the Township of Flos was created by a Crown patent in 1838 granted to Canada Firm. It went by a collection of householders till Charles Eberhardt of Elmvale bought the 60-acre parcel in 1920 for $60.
The subsequent yr, Eberhardt filed a plan of subdivision with 65 heaps, plus a highway allowance, which is now a piece of River Street East between what’s now Eastdale Drive and Archer Street.
On two of these heaps, considered one of which is now owned by the McNeills, he additionally created 10-foot broad paths resulting in a seaside, noting these public entry routes on the deed of these heaps.
The plan of subdivision additionally seems to delineate a seaside of roughly 100 toes in depth.
The query of whether or not possession is prolonged to the water could be answered in that 1838 patent, in keeping with a lawyer practising within the topic space, with intensive information of waterfront property points, who spoke to Simcoe.com on background.
It might even be a problem to find out the intent of the surveyor and the way they approached the problem of the property traces that ran alongside the seaside, given how a lot time has handed.
“Those who set out these properties are no longer with us, and long gone for a few generations,” they stated. “Subdividers are no longer here to explain what their plans were depicting and what was the intent of the grantors at the time. Record keeping is an issue at times. Use of property over decades which is contrary to the registered property is also a challenge.
“If it’s being used as a public beach and it was never planned as such, that is a challenge, for example.”
Eberhardt died in 1952. In 1962, his heirs — his two brothers and one sister — transferred the 2 public entry paths to the then Township of Flos by a stop declare deed in consideration of $1.
In every of the affidavits of Eberhardt’s siblings, the conveyance was for the aim of “perfecting the title” of the lot, in addition to offering public entry to the water. There is no such thing as a point out of the seaside space within the stop declare deed.
The realm grew to become a part of Wasaga Seashore with the restructuring of Simcoe County in 1993.
The 1987 deed of switch between the earlier house owners, Bruno and Marilyn Depetrillo, and Donald and Carollyn McNeill, specifies that the 10-foot public allowance prolonged from “front to rear of said lot 23 for road dedication purposes.”
A “correcting deed” filed a yr later by Donald McNeill, who was a lawyer, provides the seaside space between what the plan of subdivision would present as the prevailing lot and the excessive water mark of Nottawasaga Bay.
Over the following a number of years, different beachfront house owners adopted swimsuit and claimed possession of the seaside in entrance of their properties — and on a number of of these deeds, Donald McNeill is listed as having ready the doc.
An indication posted by the City of Wasaga Seashore dealing with Allenwood Seashore warns beachgoers they might be strolling onto personal property.
Ian Adams Metroland
In the summertime, the city posted indicators on the entrance to the paths, and dealing with Allenwood Seashore, that folks had been “entering private property” and cautioning them to remain on the general public seaside. Throughout a go to by a reporter, the signal on the entrance to the trail beside the McNeill’s had been defaced.
At a current public assembly, Mayor Brian Smith instructed the viewers that till the possession points are ironed out, “the town is not prepared to lead people down a pathway that takes them onto private property.”
Smith stated the paths had been meant to offer entry to the water, not the seaside. The city is reviewing the seaside entry paths throughout the municipality to find out what paths are on personal property and that are on public land.
Fisher is now contemplating his subsequent steps, which may embody asking the courts to substantiate who owns the seaside.
“I guess we have to have justice to prevail,” he stated.
McNeill maintains Fisher’s interpretation is faulty — and alleged he engaged in “verbal harassment and generally threatening behaviour” towards the beachfront house owners. At one level, she stated, the OPP had been referred to as and Fisher was bodily faraway from the seaside by police.
Fisher denied he ever harassed or threatened the neighbours — and that on the event police had been referred to as, whereas he was along with his six-year-old daughter, they willingly moved alongside.
Christie McNeill stated she and her neighbours really feel Fisher has “disrupt(ed) and threaten(ed) the peaceful co-existence of the whole community.
“My family has enjoyed many friendships that we have built with our neighbours over the decades and the whole neighbourhood has peacefully co-existed on the beach,” McNeill stated. “Unfortunately, after moving to our community… Mr. Fisher has taken it upon himself to compromise the peaceful enjoyment of the beach that we have all enjoyed.”
The lawyer consulted by Simcoe.com stated problems with waterfront entry can provoke sturdy feelings.
“Many home owners have little knowledge or understanding of their actual property rights and actual property lines which leads to opinions, feelings and misunderstandings. Often when homeowners properly understand their properties, either at time of purchase of afterwards, do they have a more tempered reaction to boundary disputes,” they stated. “These issues also relate often to residential homes or family properties that not only have great value, but are also very sentimental to individuals — and questioning their use or ownership is likely to have an emotional reaction.”
