A hefty price tag means a popular stairway to the beach at Witty’s Lagoon Regional Park likely won’t be rebuilt.

For decades, the stairs, built on a Metchosin-owned right of way at the end of Witty Beach Road, have been used by up to 30,000 people a year as a quicker and easier access to the beach than the 1.2-kilometre hike through the forest from the main parking lot.

article continues below

But the Capital Regional District shut down the stairway in August last year, citing concerns about the stability of the slope.

Now, engineers say stabilizing the slope and rebuilding the stairs would cost between $700,000 and $1.3 million. The slope has a history of failure due to natural erosion and is only marginally stable, the engineers said in a report to CRD directors.

They provided three options: riprap the shoreline, provide tiered retaining walls or insert anchors into the slope.

Instead, the regional parks committee is recommending to the CRD board that $10,000 be spent to remove the existing stairs, that other trails to the beach be improved (with costs to be determined) and that other options to provide safe public access to the beach be explored. The CRD board still has to ratify the recommendation.

Metchosin Mayor John Ranns, who said he has used the stairs to get to the beach for six decades, called the decision to remove them “a shame.”

The CRD probably should have just fixed the stairs rather than first asking for engineering assessments of the bank, Ranns said, adding there are probably all kinds of natural hazards in most regional parks.

“If we were to ask the question, we would shut down half of our parks,” Ranns said.

“That bank has been there my entire life. I walked up and down there when I was six years old. And I am convinced it will stay there long beyond my time and yet, because there is the possibility it may slough, we [end up] doing something that really is a detriment to the public,” he said.

“So my perspective on this whole thing is, ‘Why did we ask the question in the first place?’ ”

Victoria Coun. Ben Isitt, a CRD parks committee member, voted against the stairs’ removal, arguing the committee is being too risk-averse.

“I think we have room in our capital budget to fix the stairs to maintain the public access and that’s why I couldn’t support the staff recommendation of spending $10,000 to remove stairs, [resulting] in a substantial reduction in access,” Isitt said, adding the risk is manageable.

“There’s always a risk of a slope failure, but the safest thing from a standpoint of risk aversion would be to cut off all public access to all of our parks and to liquidate the park system. That’s not desirable for a number of reasons. So it’s all about what level of risk are we prepared to assume,” Isitt said.

Ranns said the CRD has little in the way of options, given the engineering reports. “It’s pretty obvious that the stairs have to come out,” Ranns said.

He said Metchosin discourages riprapping — shoring up with stones or broken concrete — as a method of erosion control.

“Whenever you do that on a shoreline, it changes the wave pattern and disrupts the beach. So we’ve actually got a policy to try to discourage that kind of stuff.”

Ranns said Metchosin will probably have to close the access entirely.

The stairway has been an issue in past summers, as people would park on both sides of the road, making it difficult for emergency vehicles and sometimes blocking driveways.

But Ranns said local residents supported replacing the stairs.

bcleverley@timescolonist.com