Kincardine council has received a report about what to do with resident-built beach access stairs and paths along Saugeen Street.
The stairways, which were privately constructed by town residents on municipal property, have been reviewed by BMRoss.
Since their individual construction, they’ve since been inherited or assumed by the Municipality of Kincardine to allow visitors to access the beach.
Senior Project Manager with BMRoss Ken Logtenberg says that the company assessed the condition of 17 stairway locations, with a majority along Saugeen Street.
The report showed that each stairway was lacking, including missing proper handrails, not having enclosed treads, not having easy-to-see colour contrast on the nose of each step, and not having tactile plates.
“There’s some structural repairs that were recommended in the report to be addressed for safety concerns. For some of the stairs, we have recommended replacement instead of trying to do the repairs. There’s an awful lot of repairs to them, so we said don’t necessarily repair, make a place in your time to replace them,” Logtenberg explained to council. “However, since some of the stairs are in close proximity to each other, we would recommend the idea of installing one good set of stairs in that location and signage directing pedestrians towards that, to use that stairs instead of multiple locations that are close to each other.”
He also said that “With some locations, we described them as an access path instead of a stairway, and when upgrading these, they should be made in compliance with a beach access path, or recreational trail standards.”
He says that each was compared to Ontario Building Code standards, as well as the standards from the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).
Only one of the stairways was deemed structurally sound, and did not require immediate improvement. Some stairways, according to the report, would be better categorized as a recreational path rather than stairs, but Logtenberg says that as the municipality makes improvements, they can all be brought up to the appropriate building code.
Municipal staff will be working to identify and create a strategy to update and improve the sets of stairs outlined in the report. Such an approach would be carried out over multiple years through capital budget discussions.
